


Parasite of My Beloved Parasite

by Irishgrlnextdoor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alien Sex, Eddie doesn't know what's going on, Eddie freaks out, M/M, Marathon Sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Not Canon Compliant, Orgasm Delay, Other, Smut, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Toxin in future chapters, an animal gets eaten/absorbed?, asexual reproduction, eddie has pregnancy symtoms, male pregnancy but not since eddie isnt the one that's pregnant, more alien sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-08-25 14:50:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irishgrlnextdoor/pseuds/Irishgrlnextdoor
Summary: Venom is going into spawning and it has them agitated. Eddie gets caught in the middle and he doesn't even know what's going on... yet.Eddie better brace himself.*note for Toxin in this one





	1. Chapter 1

 

**No.**

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Eddie hissed outloud, glaring down at the wasted tater tots and still hot baking sheet that he had just spilled on his kitchen floor. Actually- make that the sheet and tots that _Venom_ had just made him slam onto the floor. “You love tater tots any other time. I bought those because _you_ told me to! Don’t fucking waste them!” 

He knelt down to try to clean up the mess, covering his hand with the folded dish towel he had used to take the sheet out of the oven in the first place so that he didn’t get burned. He only managed to move the baking sheet to the stove-top before Venom decided to throw another fit, Eddie feeling the minute pull under his skin only a split second before the symbiote swung Eddie’s arm erratically to the side before he could even let go, sending the sheet clattering over onto the counter where it knocked off a bunch of dirty dishes onto the floor.

“What the fuck?!” Eddie all but screamed, his old anger issues rearing their ugly head and sending the blood pounding through his brain. It was a feeling he knew could go really wrong really fast for him so right away he tried to call on the techniques he had picked up from Mrs. Chen’s backstreet cousin about meditation and self-centering before he could get to the point of black out destruction like he used to back in New York.

**Eddie.**

It was far more difficult to take deep breaths and chant nam myoho renge total K.O. or whatever it was supposed to be under his breath with that deep voice growling back at him in his head, agitated by Eddie’s flare of intense anger even though they had been the cause of it. Eddie could feel them coiling around under his skin like a rattle snake. He ignored them for a few more deep breaths. “I am in control, not my emotions. I am calm-

**Eddie!**

“WHAT? What the fuck is up with you today?” Eddie roared, throwing the dish towel at the closest cabinet, reminding himself not to follow it up with his fist. Actually, Venom had been grating on his last nerve for a couple days now, acting strangely –even for them.

 **I want meat!** Venom growled back from inside of him, such force behind the demand that Eddie’s body jerked forward as if he could grab it from right in front of him.

Venom said ‘meat’, but that wasn’t what they were really demanding. Eddie could see confused images and half-thoughts flash behind his eyes of fangs digging deep into flesh or other masses of goo, tearing, ripping, and devouring, felt a ghosted excitement of hunting something down. Pursuing. Hunting. _Catching_. The cry of death as their claws sunk into-

Eddie’s own hands reached out as if to regain that feeling, pitiful nails instead of claws swiping at thin air causing him to come back to himself, shaking his head to clear such strong impulses from the forefront of his mind. It was nearly as bad as when they had first fused several months ago, when Eddie ended up sitting in a lobster tank and tearing the heads off the little bottom feeders to kill and devour. He shuddered, not wanting to do that again. It had been even more humiliating than it had been disgusting.

“No!” he snapped, with as much conviction as Venom had just shown towards the tots. “I keep you fed. You bit a guy’s head off just three weeks ago for selling tainted pharmaceuticals. You can’t really be this hungry. So what _the fuck_?”

 That coiling feeling crawled through him again. Eddie got a trickle of leftover feelings of frustration and desire for the kill, for the triumph, passing between them. There was… a hesitation too. Something Venom wasn’t telling him. Something they weren’t even admitting to themselves, possibly an underlying cause for the irritability and pent up energy of the last couple days.

Eddie opened his mouth to press, but before he could get out a word Venom’s attention zeroed in on him and suddenly that hunger shifted a bit, Eddie getting a clear visual of himself and the way he was currently kneeling on all fours on the floor of his kitchen, head lowered, surrounded by tater tots. No one else around.  

It was just a sense, a half-thought really that passed from the symbiote into him, but it sent an anxious chill down his back. He looked like _prey_.

As soon as his own mind echoed the thought and Venom noted the chill that swept his spine that whisper in the back of his mind was like a roar in the frozen silence of the room.

“Venom?” Eddie whispered, thankful when his voice sounded sturdier than he presently felt though it was a bit quiet even to Eddie’s ears. Only silence greeted him.

Silence, and a heavy feeling that made him think of gazelles looking around for the jaguar stalking up behind them; aware of the danger, but not yet certain how to avoid it.

It was crazy, Eddie had been living in fairly decent harmony with the symbiote inside of him for just shy of a year now. They knew each other more fully and completely than Eddie thought any two beings ever could. Every disgusting thing he did or shameful secret he hid that still liked to creep through his mind randomly- Venom knew and still accepted Eddie wholly, shared his worries and fears and insecurities with him. When they came together to stop bad guys, they made Eddie feel powerful, and alive, and for the first time in his life… _valuable_. Like he was something good for those around him. Like he was finally getting to enact the justice he had made a career out of trying to seek. And when they came together in private, feeding off of and even sharing in each other’s desires and pleasure- fuck if it wasn’t addicting, their sex some next level shit that epic poems or novels could be written about; or at the very least some very decent fanfictions.

This was so out of the ordinary for them at this point. This was… Eddie felt… he was _afraid_.

He hadn’t felt this fear towards his symbiote since first learning he had it. Or at least since learning that it had been killing him, but then Venom had fixed it. They had made it clear they had every intention of keeping Eddie. Eddie was _theirs_. They were Eddie’s.

The fear manifested the same way that it had back then in Eddie too, his old New-York anger bubbling up to mask how hurt and scared he actually was. He growled in the back of his throat in warning, his body tensing like an animal ready to fight. “What? Ya gonna eat _me_? Ya fuckin’ bastard… you think yer gonna eat _me_?” he growled, his east-side accent coming out. “You wanna go? Ya come on out here and face me then, you _rat_ son of a bitch! After all I’ve done for yer ungrateful-

He didn’t scream when his body was suddenly pushed down by a force underneath his own skin, but not because he wasn’t terrified. For all Venom’s predatory silence and stillness, they had finally pounced, the air knocked out of Eddie for how hard his chest hit the floor of his kitchen. His body was pressed down and pinned like a 500 pound boulder had just landed on him even though there was nothing there to be seen. He grit his teeth, but it hurt, and something between a growl and a shout escaped him as he waited for the feeling of teeth… either on the outside or inside of himself. The worst part was not having any clue where the attack might start. Maybe Venom would start with his neck and be merciful with a quick kill. Maybe they would start with his intestines and draw it out.

No bite came.

Instead there was a whisper of **Eddie** through his mind, sounding strained of all things, like Venom was likewise struggling. **Eddie, ours. Just ours. All ours. Mine**!

He could sense a twisting of the hunger he had felt before, a feeling of desire flowing into him from Venom far more intense than he usually ever started off feeling. Flashes in his mind, seeing himself claimed, full, wrecked, crying for more as Venom filled and surrounded him. The desire and want from Venom was so intense that it clouded his mind, made it hard to tell if it was Venom’s mood, or his. _Theirs, their_ _desire_. The lines between them blurred past reason and made it impossible to know where one’s thoughts and wants ended and the other’s began. Both of them melding together into a perfect ‘we’.

X

Eddie could hardly tell what was up or down anymore. He didn’t know if it was night or day. He didn’t even know who was president anymore.

He didn’t fucking care though.

What little he _did_ know he was absolutely certain of, and all he knew -and had known for what seemed like an indiscernible amount of time- was _Venom_ and absolute unending pleasure.

This was new, even for them. Eddie had thought they had been adventurous, explorative. That all felt so vanilla at the moment.

Venom had done something new, something Eddie hadn’t known they even _could_ do.

Venom had encased Eddie, spreading themselves out around their host, forming a pseudo room all around him. Actually, room wasn’t the right word. Maybe cocoon… or nest. Eddie could move and stretch out, the pitch black mass moving to allow him to do so at will, but always keeping close, cradling him and holding him in it’s protection. Usually it positioned and moved him about within itself, shifting him around to touch and explore every inch. He couldn’t even see anything inside of it, just feel.

The soft shell around him was warmed with Eddie’s own raised body heat, soft where he lay within it. Black vein-like strands wrapped around him and held him secure as alien appendages softly milked yet another orgasm from his over-spent cock. He could feel the soft warm goo of Venom wrapped around his chest and stomach, keeping him steady, cushioning against his back and ass where another appendage was planted deeply inside his ass where it writhed around to touch and fill everything and stroked at his abused prostate.

It was wrapped around his legs, strands webbing over the entire length of them, tighter around the very tops of his thighs, under his knees, and even between his toes to keep his legs comfortably open and bent for clear access to his sensitive bits.

He let out a shuddering gasp and another whine as the goo encasing his cock and balls both pulsed and writhed gently to coax out more of his orgasm. Where it was all being sent he had no idea, but it was another thing he no longer gave a fuck about.

His arms were likewise wrapped up and spread out to the sides of his body, his hands holding onto globs of his symbiote nest. It laced through his fingers and squeezed back as if they were holding his hand. It was the only thing grounding him at all in this shell of blissful pleasure. His neck was circled by a thick and wet tongue that applied a soft but heady pressure to his windpipe and would now and then curl up to caress the side of his jaw. Sometimes the tip would slide over towards his mouth and Eddie would seek it out, teasing it back with his own and nearly losing his mind when it would enter his mouth and throat to further cut off his air, giving him something to moan around and suck on.

Every now and then, there was that voice too. That deep reassuring voice was all around him to praise him and tell him how beautiful he was and how perfect he was being for them.

Sometimes Eddie would fall asleep after these bouts, and then wake up to Venom still all around him, softly mawing at his oversensitive cock with its nimble little tendrils or working his asshole wider with steady pulses of its warm inky appendages for another round.

It just went on and on until, eventually, Eddie gave a final shudder, long past dry orgasms, unable to even give a proper one any longer, and completely passed out.

Venom realized they had gone beyond Eddie’s limits as soon as this happened.

They thought he had done surprisingly well for a _human_ , a race that astoundingly had managed to rise to the rank of apex on this planet despite being so fleshy and vulnerable. It only took about three days without food and water for Eddie to pass out, as a prime example. If watching Eddie’s TV had taught them anything it was that humans could and _would_ die from anything and everything. Killing them all would have been all too easy for Venom’s kind. Once again, they were thankful Eddie had pushed them to rise up and claim it as their own from Riot.

They handled Eddie very gently as they released him from the shelter of the mating shell they had constructed while Venom began the process of DNA replication and manipulation before cell division. Their self-reproductive process officially starting.

Venom’s kind tended to replicate and splice their spawn through asexual means, so it would have happened regardless of Eddie’s involvement. The days leading up to it, however, were notoriously testing for any symbiote’s metal and it had been unable to resist involving Eddie in its heightened drive for a little self-lovin’ in the days leading up to it.

Really it wasn’t a big deal, a minor inconvenience really since it happened only once every partmenter or so for their kind. Really the only truly difficult part was finding a suitable host for their spawn to latch onto and establish a bond with once it was pinched off from their parent entity.

There would be time to worry about that later, however, Eddie needing Venom’s attention at the moment.

They were still in the kitchen, not having moved for the last three days very much. Venom carried Eddie atop his form, pulling them both over to the fridge and opening it up to start digging for food and water. They would get Eddie his fluids and nutrients, see that he rested and recharged. Eddie’s care and comfort was deeply tied to their own after all, and they weren’t about to neglect either one further.

They would both need their strength in the upcoming days.

* * *

Subscribe for chapter 2 updates: Eddie receives the happy news and experiences some strange symptoms. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

When he first came to it had been in the middle of the afternoon, judging by the sun trying to crack through the gap in his curtains, and he had been tucked into his warm bed. Venom was a warm pool all around him, blanketing his chest and pillowing his head and arms. He felt full, figuring the symbiote must have eaten for them, but he was still utterly exhausted and so that first day he merely turned over and went back to sleep as Venom pressed in tighter all around him.

The whole next day Eddie had been in pain. A dull throbbing pain that flared in his overtaxed muscles every time he moved and his cock had been absolute agony to touch at all; even just to use the restroom. Putting on clothing had been too much, though he couldn’t find the will to actually _complain_ about any of it. He took a couple sick days, finding blissful relief by soaking in bath after bath of slightly cooled water as his mind swirled around the memories of the last couple days like a fine wine it was appreciating. 

Sometimes just thinking of how that cocoon of Venom had felt would cause his body to clench in muscle memory or his cock to twitch and then he would let out a small hiss of pain as his body protested. Oh, but the spirit was strong even if the body was weak, and even those small burns of pain caused his lip to curl in a soft smile of memory.

Each time this happened his brain hummed with a certain satisfaction over what they had spent days doing and he could feel it echoed back from the symbiote within himself. It was akin to when two lovers would share knowing smiles with each other after truly great sex, but again the level was so much deeper. The emotions of both _felt_ rather than expressed. No room for doubt on either parts this way, no second guessing the sincerity. 

Venom said little, though Eddie wasn’t especially chatty either as he glided on his lasting high even while his body recovered. The symbiote was there with him in more of a physical presence for those first couple days, however, seeping out through Eddie's skin to blanket his chest as he soaked in the tub. Sometimes they would wriggle and press softly over his back and shoulders to massage the weary muscles. Sometimes his arms or legs were coated to get a similar treatment. It caused a wonderful euphoria in Eddie that would spread over into Venom. Afterwards they would curl up, practically purring to be in each other’s embrace.

The few times Eddie had had to struggle to his feet to replenish his store of bottled water and fatty snacks he was squirreling away in the bathroom, Venom was a figurative and literal crutch and helped him move about; assuring him that he was healing fine, Eddie moving a bit easier each time. 

He still hobbled a bit on the third day and still felt fatigued when he finally decided to go out and get groceries. Venom didn’t ask for much, but he didn’t have to. Once they started it was Eddie that filled their cart all on his own, loading up mainly on frozen food and candy and meat from the deli. He grabbed a head of lettuce to compromise with his guilt. It wasn’t until he got to the counter that he realized he might have grabbed more than his fridge could hold. He didn’t think he had ever filled a _basket_ before in his life, much less a cart. He tried to appear sorry to the checkout girl for having so much, but his momentary guilt was trumped when he spotted Goo Goo Clusters in the candy selection at her register and on pure impulse dragged the whole box down onto her checkout belt too.

He had planned to do some research for his renewed show once everything got put away at home, but after stuffing his fridge past the point of capacity and giving a bag of frozen tots to a very pleased mini Venom head lurking over his shoulder from the back of his neck he was really tired. Just exhausted. 

Figuring he hadn’t replenished enough nutrients, he curled up in bed spooning a bottle of water and reminded the inky form behind him to watch the crumbs before nodding off to the sound of crunching tots and snapping jaws. 

The fourth day he was still tired, but hardly sore anymore, already starting to wonder if he should wait to ask Venom to play with him that way again or...

It had felt astronomically good, but the recovery was proving to be a bitch. He was still always tired and always hungry. He noticed his fatigue was making him moodier too even though he was getting as much sleep as possible. Just generally irritable, shoving his work to the side when he became too frustrated to concentrate after finding out his next interview had had to push back their meeting to next _month_. Venom had been watching his Amazon Prime account as he worked, and he had watched a little bit of Jaws with the symbiote instead. While Venom seemed to love the movie, clicking his own jaws a bit whenever the shark killed another helpless swimmer, Eddie had gotten the shock of his life when he found himself suddenly tearing up a bit as the main character nearly lost his son to the shark. He hadn’t even realized he had been that sad about it, having seen the movie several times before without any strong reactions like this. It made no rational sense for him to be having such a strong emotional reaction to it. It had to be part of sleep deprivation. Or maybe a really delayed sub-drop, he wasn’t sure. Venom picked up on it right after he had, pressing against his face and curling his tongue out to catch the couple tears that managed to escape but Eddie assure them he was fine, just that he supposed he needed more sleep and they shouldn’t worry.

He knew he needed to get back to work, already having missed a full week. As much as he entertained the idea of exploring that kind of mind and body-wrecking pleasure again with Venom, he supposed they would just have to pace themselves down the road.

That night, however, Eddie truly noted that something was off about them. They had both been eating all day, pigging out really, and doing nothing to burn the calories. But still he found himself sluggishly getting to his feet at around two in the morning to raid his fridge again because he was practically starved.

It wasn’t like the lobster tank, thank God, but still he moved with purpose as he cooked up a big pot of mac and cheese, throwing in just about every kind of cheese he had in his fridge, as well as a sliced up bell pepper, half a tub of sour cream, pickle slices, a heavy shot of ketchup, and some oreo crumbs.

He ate it slowly, thoughtfully -desite being so hungry, and it somehow tasting so good to him. Something was seriously not right.

"Hey Love?"

Silence.

Venom was there, Eddie knew he was heard, but the symbiote was reluctant to comment. Almost like it was anxiously waiting for a hammer to drop; holding something back from him.

"You know what’s going on right now, don’t you?" Eddie mumbled through another full bite of macaroni surprise.

**You’re hungry.**

They were edging around the question. Eddie could feel it. He took a deep breath in and out before taking another bite. "Just tell me why this shit tastes good to me right now."

Hesitation, anxious energy, and then… **Keeping our energy up is good. It’s necessary. A lot of energy is needed at this time.**

"Why?" Eddie pressed, gripping the bowl tighter against his chest as he ate. Eddie prayed with every fiber of his being he was very wrong about what he suspected Venom had to tell him. He was becoming more and more afraid of what it might be by the second, already getting flashes here and there from the symbiote of large goo bodies pinching off smaller goo bodies that would jiggle and pull themselves across the ground on little sticky tendrils...

Venom picked up on the choked anxiety and fear from Eddie, making them hesitant and confused as to what was causing such distress.

They considered Eddie's trembling body and the death-grip he had on his bowl, the tense way he tried to hold completely still. There was no apparent need for it. **Spawning is perfectly natural, Eddie.** Venom told him, his tone a bit patronizing, as if Eddie was simply unfamiliar with the very concept.

Venom had seen enough tiny human spawns running around to know it happened here too. They realized, however, that of all the memories Eddie had ever shared with them there had never been any that included spawning. Not that they had shared much about that with Eddie either. It wasn’t really something worth bringing up outside of their immediate spawning cycle.

Maybe, however, Eddie had simply never...

There was a problem, something wrong. Something was wrong with Eddie. Venom couldn’t tell what, everything seemed fine physically, but his mind... it was stuttering and stagnant, uncomprehending, struggling. The echo of " _spawning is perfectly natural_ " spiraled around and around within Eddie’s head.

"I- wha- no, I..."

Whatever the issue was with his brain, it seemed to be affecting his cognitive speech as well. The symbiote bristled with agitation for not being able to find the problem to fix.

"S-spawning as in... as in s-spawning? Like a little baby _us_ is growing?" Eddie gasped.

 **No** , Venom assured him, feeling the rush of relief through Eddie's entire being pass through them as well like a warm breeze. **There is no baby. There is no _us_ in this case**.

Another relief as Eddie relaxed considerably. "Oh thank God! Then wha-

**I have started the process of DNA duplication and alteration to form a new _spawn_ of _myself_. This is, as you say, a me-thing. After it is compiled enough to bond and survive with a new host I will begin the fission process to part with it. **

That unnerving stuttering of Eddie's brain was happening again, even worse this time, and his adrenaline was pumping with fear enough to cause him to break out in a cold sweat. They didn’t like it. They didn’t understand it. It was hard to reach and communicate with Eddie through it.

 **Eddie? Why are you becoming stunted mentally? Stop it now.**  

Eddie ignored them, the bowl cracking between his hands from his grip. There was... so much fear. But Venom couldn’t see any threat around them.

 "Another you?" Eddie choked out, horse and still forming only half-thoughts. "Two of _you_? There's another _you_ in _my_ body?!"

The fear was growing, but no longer alone, lining itself with a thin shell of fury.

 **Our body!** Venom reminded him.

After all, they were the reason it still functioned at all. If not for them it would be a broken and decaying rot underneath the ground several times over by now. If Venom really wanted to they could overtake Eddie's body as the primary form, and then Eddie would be the ‘parasite’ within them.

Eddie caught that train of thought, his fury exploding at it. He slammed the bowl into the kitchen sink where it cracked in half and sent cheesy noodles and plexiglass erupting all over the already filthy counter. "No! That’s not fucking happening! Fuck you, _you're_ the parasite! Ya needed _me_ to live long before I ever needed _you_! Ya _owed_ it to me to save me, ya shitstain! I saved you’re life _first_. If not for _me_ ya’d be a dried out husk in a glass cell back at Life Foundation!"

 **... Perhaps that's fair** , that deep voice conceded after a moment of consideration. **But I am _not_ a parasite! Apologize! **

They took control under Eddie’s skin and jerked them both to the side sharply, knocking Eddie's body into the cabinets in reprimand. The pain in Eddie’s nerve endings was a lesser echo through the symbiote's being within.

 Eddie growled in fury; no doubt he would have lashed out if there was something around him to retaliate against. "Stop that!" he warned, "You’re spawning _another_ little parasite in me and it’s causing me to feel exhausted and eat weird shit! Wait… was that why I was moody earlier?"

They jerked them both into the counter once more, sharing in Eddie's anger now. **Not a parasite! Don’t call it that. What’s the issue anyway? Lots of humans spawn.** Venom insisted again.

Eddie grabbed a spatula at random from the counter as if he intended to use it if Venom pushed them into it again, but the symbiote wasn’t about to come out yet where Eddie could get them.

 It wasn’t fair, but they didn’t have to fight fair.

 " _Female_ humans!” Eddie bellowed, “Not me! Only _female_ humans spawn. Actually- they don’t ‘spawn’ either. They give birth to babies. Men don’t! Men aren’t supposed to. Even if they were able to I personally wouldn’t _want_ to; it’s horrifying and disgusting!"

**It’s natural.**

"So is taking a shit but sometimes that can be horrifying and disgusting too!"

**... you're a weird one, Eddie.**

"Oh! That’s rich! You're spawning and _I'm_ the weird one?! You know what- no." His anger shifted over to determination and indignant outrage so suddenly the symbiote could hardly even keep up with the switch as Eddie purposefully strolled over to his cell phone that he had left next to the couch. "You're not spawning anything."

**What are you doing?**

Eddie was blocking Venom from seeing his intent as best he could, hardly letting himself think about it at all, much less think it through; following pure instinct that told him only to call for help. It made it harder for the symbiote to stay ahead of him to try to stop him. Venom coiled in his mind and body in confused apprehension as Eddie managed to call Anne before he could be stopped.

 

* * *

 

The knocking on his door was a godsend for Eddie, knowing that sure enough Anne had come to _him_ since he hadn’t been able to make it to _her_. After they had hung up Venom had trapped him, not allowing him to move his own body in any direction, much less out of his apartment to head to Anne’s. Leaving him planted next to his couch like some sort of twisted time out. With both their minds firmly made up on conflicting goals concerning the spawn, they had fallen into silent treatments of each other.

“Anne, I’m in here! It's not letting me move!” Eddie shouted towards his door, thankful again when the sound of the key he had given Anne could be heard turning in his lock.

Venom growled at Eddie's victory inside of his ear.

Anne wasn’t stupid, and it had been all too soon after Eddie and Venoms’ initial rejoining after Riot that Anne had deduced on her own that they were officially together again. Ok, so it would have been impossible for her not to assume so when videos of Venom tearing through San Francisco once more appeared on the news several months ago.

In any case, she had initially given Eddie a tongue-lashing that even the symbiote could have never competed with out of concern for his wellbeing. She was a great friend to him still, however, even if they weren’t together anymore and he had a highly questionable relationship with a homicidal space monster with a winning smile.

He had told her the brief version of what Venom had told him on the phone, skipping details about the past week’s happenings aside from the weird side effects he was feeling and the fact that Venom told him they were getting ready to make _another_ space monster. Thankfully she had been horrified too, even if Venom couldn’t see why, and had told him she would contact Dan and he should come over right away despite it being so late.

They both walked into his filthy little apartment now, Anne looking about as distraught as Eddie felt, although it was already a big comfort to have them here with him. Even Dan.

Actually, since he was a doctor -and given the current situation- Eddie could admit to himself in this particular case he was especially glad to see Dan.

Dan had no doubt been told the gist by Anne already on the way, but he walked in with all the expected awkwardness of anyone stepping into the ex’s home and gave a stiff but polite wave to Eddie in greeting. “Hey there.”

Eddie and Anne both ignored him for the moment, Anne looking over Eddie as if trying to spot some physical anomaly. _Maybe a belly bump_ , his own mind offered up traitorously. “Eddie, what’s happening?”

Eddie felt the symbiote’s hold on his body release, still wary of their visit. It was a relief to move again and Eddie rushed over to Anne to grab her into a hug despite how much she tensed up. He desperately needed another human voice of reason. Even more he needed a friend.

Dan stood back awkwardly as the hug continued just a little bit too long.

 **Eddie, you’re making us look pitiful** , Venom scolded him.

“Anne… Dan… thank God you’re here- oh wow, I never said both your names out loud together before; it sounds a little weird- sorry, I didn’t know who else to call and I need _help_!”

Being beseeched for help seemed to steady Anne a bit, her expression crossing from worried to more thoughtful as she tried to reason out the situation for him. “Eddie, you said Venom is going to have a- a spawn?! It told you it was going to make another symbiote?”

“IS making, right now, inside of me!” Eddie hissed in near hysteria, gripping her shoulders just a little too desperately, and backing off a bit when she winced.

“No way!” Dan interjected, though his voice held more awe than horror, causing both Anne and Eddie to give him reproachful looks. He had the decency to shrug in truely sheepish embarrassment. “Sorry. Really, I am. It’s just that, as a doctor, the idea of an alien pregnancy is just…” he had the audacity to look as if he was groping for the word ‘cool’ for a moment before letting the sentence drop entirely at their blistering glares. He cleared his throat awkwardly before stepping closer and assuming his ‘doctor voice’. “How far along are you then? Do you know? I didn’t bring anything with me to get a urine sample. I just-

Eddie let go of Anne, grabbing Dan instead, just as desperately. “Fuck the urine samples! You need to get it _out_ of me. Get rid of it.”

**I already told you, it will leave soon enough once it is amassed properly.**

“I’m not waiting for that!” Eddie shouted, vaguely remembering that only he could hear Venom’s voice when they were inside of him as Anne and Dan exchanged confused and worried looks. “There has to be a way to get rid of it now! Right now, before it has a chance to amass anything! Take me to a lab and just start cutting if you have to!”

**WHAT?!**

Eddie didn’t miss the horrified and reproachful look he was getting from Anne out of the corner of his eye now.

Dan was looking at him like he had just grown another head, and Eddie had to look over each shoulder to make sure he hadn’t. Venom wasn’t outside of him though.

Venom’s voice was a roar in his head, only now getting flashes and explanations from the options Eddie was roll-a-dex-ing through in his own mind of getting rid of the spawn before it could be pinched off and bonded to a new host. **Don’t you dare! If Dan even tries to come in after me I will bite his head off!**

“You’re not going to bite Dan’s head off!” Eddie screamed back at his symbiote, Dan turning three shades whiter in front of him as he immediately pulled himself from Eddie’s desperate grip and backed towards the door. “You can’t go around spawning on this planet! You’re gonna end up destroying it. We can fix this mess you’ve made here and now before it even becomes a problem. It’s not a discussion. We’re not gonna sit here and weigh out if we should or shouldn’t endanger the entire human populace! This is gonna be nipped in the bud and that’s all there is to it, so just shut up because you don’t get a say in this!”

“Oh, _Eddie_ ,” Anne admonished, the disappointment the thickest he had ever heard it in her voice, snapping him out of his hysteric panic for a moment. He could see that disappointment even more clearly when he turned to look in her eyes. It was that same look she could always give him that made him feel like he had swallowed down a handful of razor blades, only this time way worse.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that? You- you think I’m the bad guy in this?!” he gasped in disbelief and righteous indignation.

Anne let out a long sigh, shaking her head a bit. “Eddie, I’m not going to pretend to understand what you’re going through. No one possibly could, because there isn’t a single person on this planet that has had this exact scenario happen to them before. So, to be honest, no one can fairly judge you for the way you’re dealing with it now. Unfair as it might be, however, I’ll just say that you’re _not_ looking very good to me right now when you’re screaming at any creature for a bodily function it can’t seem to help.”

It wasn’t like that. Venom had… they didn’t even tell him… maybe they could have done something to…

 _Damn_.

Eddie felt his anger shrivel up into something putrid and even more difficult to swallow. Shame hit him and took his pride down to its depths as he considered that there probably wasn’t much difference between him right now and some lowlife that freaked out that his girlfriend was pregnant before splitting.

It didn’t change entirely the fact that there was still a big difference here, that being that they were talking about _another_ alien inside of his body, not knowing fully how that might effect him or his general health. Another alien being introduced into this world was possibly –and likely- an even more dangerous concept to consider.

Still, Eddie knew he was out of line lashing out at Venom like this when they couldn’t have helped it either way.

He looked inward to the symbiote, able to feel them. They were quiet, anxious and… hurt.

 _Fuck_.

Eddie felt that razor feeling once more, worse than ever before. He cleared his throat, which was sore from his screaming. His voice was very quiet when he spoke again. “Can you guys… um, can we have some privacy for a moment?”

Anne and Dan exchanged glances, both nodding and making their way to the door to wait out in the hall once more till they knew how to proceed. Anne cast Eddie a final glance that warned him ‘don’t be an asshole’ before closing the door behind her.

It was all quiet in the apartment, Venom still silent within him. Eddie itched at the back of his head, feeling like the world’s biggest dick and unsure where to start. “Hey Love, I- look, I just wanna say I- I’m _freaked out_. I can’t help that, this is all new to me and… terrifying. This spawning that’s happening isn’t something you seem to have much control over, however, and what’s done is done, I guess. I might have been too hard on you about it. I’m just- I don’t know the first thing about alien goo babies. I don’t even know the first thing about human babies for that matter. Anne wanted some but I just never… anyway, I’ve been kind of shitty, I guess. I’m sorry about that. I am _sorry_ , Love. I’m done yelling, done being mad at you about it. I don’t know what we’re gonna do about this to make it okay; we still need to figure that out. As far as how I’ve reacted to this, however, I’m _sorry_.”

There was a shifting under his skin, slow and itchy up his back and between his shoulder blades. His skin tickled a bit where Venom broke the surface, that inky face drifting over his shoulder to better speak to him. They did that during truly important conversations. Those milky eye blots and rows of teeth stared at him, intimidating to all else, but at this point Eddie could see the subtle hints that told him they were guarded right now as they faced him.

“Can you at least understand _why_ I’m freaked out?” Eddie tried to reason. “I mean, put yourself in my position. If I told you one day that I was pregnant- er, suppose that was possible- that there was a little human sharing this body with us, wouldn’t you be freaked out too?”

Venom considered this question, genuine in their answer when they finally gave one. “So long as it does not bring harm to Eddie, we would endure.”

Eddie was stunned by that answer, certainly not one he had been expecting. “Jesus, how the fuck am I less human than a giant space-monster?” He tried to shake off enough of his shock and self-reproach to be able to continue the conversation. “I- shit that’s actually kind of nice of you, but it doesn’t change the fact that _I’m_ scared, okay? I can’t help that, and I still don’t know anything about raising one of your kind.”

“My kind does not raise spawn, Eddie. It is only necessary to carry within us until a spawn can form a bond of its own. After fisson takes place there is no more need for further nurturing.”

Eddie was a little surprised by that, especially considering how small the goo-babies had been that he had seen in Venom’s shared recollections. “That’s a little cold. You just pinch it off and then forget about it?”

“Yes,” they replied, simply like it was a matter of fact.

Eddie cringed at the thought of letting an alien spawn go into the world alone like that. More for the world’s sake than the spawn’s really, he wasn’t fool enough to mistake which was more at risk. “You can’t just set it loose in _this_ world. Your kind never raises them at all?”

Venom seemed to consider the question for a moment, those milky eyes narrowing a bit before it answered. “If I kept it, it would eventually try to take you, Eddie. If it tried that, I would kill it. My kind only keeps their spawn with them if they intend to eat them.”

“Jesus,” Eddie hissed through his teeth, disturbed by the cold intent there. “No, actually this is good, I feel like a lot less of a monster now at least.”

Venom only stared back at him, unsure how to answer that.

“So, you’re not worried at all… you’ve done this before?”

“Many times.”

Oh… so there was that.

“You’ve never passed on your genetic makeup at all, have you Eddie?”

Eddie blushed, embarrassed by that for some reason. He shook his head, unable to deny it. “No, I’ve never had a baby.”

“Your genes are unsatisfactory to those that can ‘birth’?”

“What? No! I already said I just never really wanted any. My genes are fine!”

That alien face actually had the nerve to look doubtful.

“Look, I could if I wanted to, I’ve had chances… but I just don’t want kids, okay?”

“If you say so. Actually this is good. I feel like a lot less of a loser now at least,” Venom chided, throwing Eddie’s earlier sentiments back at him.

Eddie wrestled with his temper, winning a small victory as he let out a long breath from between puffed out cheeks and tried for some diplomacy. “Venom- Love… it’s dangerous to go through with this, you know that right? It will change things forever if there is another symbiote out there. What if the wrong person were to bond with it? That’s like giving a WMD to someone and hoping nothing bad happens.”

That alien face extending from gooey strands seeping out from his skin moved around him, brushing against Eddie’s shoulder as it swiveled around to the other side of Eddie’s head. “Then we can give it to someone good. I find bad guys for you Eddie. You need to find us a _good_ guy. That way this spawn can be good, like us. Both of us heroes. Just imagine it. Two symbiotes working to collect the heads of bad guys into a glorious mass-pile of blood and brains and justice! The bodies go in a different pile!”

“Oh God,” Eddie groaned, burying his face in his hands for a moment.

Venom only continued to smile, and Eddie could feel the triumphant glee running through the symbiote. They were not lying about the indifference felt towards the spawn itself, the glee did not run so deep that it was affection of any kind. There was a triumph in the idea of colonizing, however, and a relief so thin Eddie wondered if Venom was even allowing themselves realize they felt it at all. It was a relief that, while they might not seek company of their own kind, they were relieved to not be entirely alone in this world.

This conversation wasn’t over. Far from it, but still Eddie could not help lifting his hand to touch the Symbiote’s head. The feel of it was cool and smoother than skin could ever hope to be. Venom pressed into the touch, its head splitting to slide between the fingers and amass once more on the other side of it, accepting Eddie’s attempt at reassurance and the message he was trying to send to them without words or thoughts. The message that they were never entirely alone in this world.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subscribe for updates and please review/critique. 
> 
> Next chapter: Eddie learns way more about alien reproduction than he ever wanted to as his second-hand ‘pregnancy’ symptoms progress and some new unexpected ones pop up.
> 
> Also, fair warning, I am aware of the canon continuity of Carnage and eventually Toxin. I love Toxin though, and this story does not follow comic book or movie continuity. Its just a fun little thing that's all its own. (I assume story line continuity isn't that big a detriment to any fans of the Venom movie though.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to share what does and doesn't work for you about this fanfic or my personal style, it all goes towards growth.

 

“So, how long usually does a… a thing like this tend to last? Being alien and all, I’m going to have to assume we’re not facing the standard nine months,” Dan prompted.

No longer in immediate danger of being having his head bitten off, the good doctor was perched on Eddie’s coffee table while Eddie sat on the couch.

Dan had been at the hospital when Anne had initially contacted him, and he had managed to bring along only the most basic doctors’ tools, not knowing what else to grab for something like this. He used what he had now to run a routine exam on Eddie while asking him questions about the spawning. Eddie didn’t like being poked and prodded at but figured it best to let the man evaluate his present health and look for any first signs of complications it might be causing to Eddie’s body.

While Dan shined his little light in Eddie’s eyes to make sure they were dilating normally, Venom’s voice echoed through his head. **Stage two has begun and the replication of DNA material is underway**. **The whole process usually takes a kintence from start to finish.**

“What the heck is a kintence?” Eddie grumbled, ignoring the way Dan appeared confused for a moment as he tried to decide if he was the one actually being spoken to or not.

**It’s our term used for the length of time a-sexual reproduction takes for my kind. A time measurement.**

“And here that translates to…”

A pause while Venom considered it. **Maybe three weeks.**

Eddie tried to take another slow breath, but his heart rate was kicking up wildly again. “Like three weeks and then stage three _starts_ or three weeks and there’s another symbiote?”

Dan and Anne were exchanging worried looks again over his head, picking up the gist.  

Eddie received another memory flash of a squirmy little goo ball fully separated from its parent body again in answer. 

“Jesus…” the only thing that kept Eddie from panicking all over again was the knowledge that with Anne and Dan already in his apartment that meant he had the two smartest people he knew there and ready to help him figure out a plan and answers. “They’re saying stage two has begun. It’s replicating its DNA. It might be three weeks before the fission begins. ”

Anne and Dan both continued to stare back at him. Anne looked on the verge of horrified, and Dan finally looked worried. They weren’t comforting looks to him at all.

“Three weeks?” Anne repeated under her breath. “Eddie, it’s already been a week since this started from what you told me…”

**Correct, we’re about a third of the way through.**

That panic shot through him again and Eddie dug his nails into his palms to try to cut his focus from it. They dug in till he managed to cut himself, but it helped very little. His head was hammering like it might explode and he was sweating even though he was just sitting there, a chill shooting down his spine like he had just been given a date of death. Two weeks then. About two weeks, maybe more or less, and then there would be another symbiote. “Fuuuuuucccccckkkkkkk,” Eddie hissed out, proud of himself for not screaming it as he tried hard to absorb the information given rather than explode from it. He had promised to be done freaking out at Venom for this, but there was no helping the fact that it was still plenty freaky.

Venom coiled inside of him in mirrored agitation at his mental stuttering once more. **Eddie, focus, the second week isn’t that bad at all. We just get hungry for the most part**.

“For the _most_ part? What else happens?”

“Eddie?” Dan prompted, needing to know the conversation taking place.

“They say we mostly will just be hungry for the second week,” Eddie reiterated, the going back and forth further agitating him as he refocused inward to Venom. “What else though?”

“Oh, symptoms! Excellent!” Dan lit up with excitement once more, taking out a notebook and pen to start jotting down notes. “I wanted to get to those. I can only imagine all the variations given how much we differ biologically.”

Venom started whispering through Eddie’s ear, who tried to keep his cool enough to repeat it all to Dan. “They say there’s usually fatigue and increased appetite. Nausea, muscle cramps, and mood swings.”

Dan’s pen paused in its scratching and he looked up at Eddie like he had just been short-changed. “But… but those are the same symptoms that a human would already- That doesn’t make any sense!”

Eddie didn’t really mean to shrug, his shoulders pulled up into the action by the symbiote from underneath his skin.

He was sort of in agreement with his other’s flippant response to Dan’s qualms. “Oh, I’m so sorry that my alien’s pregnancy isn’t exciting enough for you.”

“Eddie,” Anne chided softly, sliding onto the armrest of his little couch. “Dan’s not trying to be insensitive,” she assured him, casting a pointed glance to Dan as she did so. “Is there anything else you or your… Venom can tell us about what’s going to happen?”

Eddie’s first thought was about how Venom said he had to find a host for it. That was something he didn’t really want to share with Anne. It felt like admitting that would be like in some way agreeing that they were going through with this madness. Besides just that… admitting that the way this would end would be by forcing someone else to go through what Eddie had himself…

Even if in his case it had worked out, he could still recall the horror and trauma of the first few weeks. Of Venom killing him from the inside out when they weren’t certain they would keep Eddie all that long… Jesus, what if the spawn just ate up whatever host Eddie found and then went on to one after another?

Sensing his worry and the reasons behind it that strummed through his mind like a sour note, the symbiote whispered through his head to reassure him. **It’s easier for new spawn to form a lasting bond with a host, Eddie. They are like a blank slate. They don’t often reject an available host like one of my kind would once matured. On the off chance the first host is rejected, a second shouldn’t be.**

Eddie had to focus to communicate his thoughts clearly without speaking them outloud, ignoring the impatience on Anne’s face as she was ignored. ‘But if it does reject them, it will…’

**Fuel in the tank.**

Eddie couldn’t keep the cringe from appearing on his face.

“Eddie?” Anne prompted, concern lacing her voice.

Before he could answer her at all the symbiote had his attention again. **Eddie! That’s it! We need a good person to give this new symbiote to. We could give it to Anne!**

“NO!” Eddie all but screamed in response before he could stop himself, jumping to his feet from the couch so suddenly both Anne and Dan nearly fell back in their own surprise.

Anne got to her feet as well, instantly on alert for her alarmed friend. “Eddie?”

Eddie was shaking his head and putting as much distance as he could between them as Venom continued in his head. **Anne has bonded with us before without complications, the spawn shouldn’t cause her any. She belongs to us, and she’s a good person. You said she wanted a spawn of her own before, we could give her ours instead. Maybe your genetics weren’t fitting for her to take on and ‘birth’ but mine are far superior!**

“NO!” Eddie bellowed again, wishing with everything that Anne would stop presently following him around his little apartment, even though she was keeping a bit of a distance at the same time out of well-placed caution. “No, no, no, no, no! Don’t even think about it! It’s not going to happen!”

**It makes the most sense. She liked our power, Eddie. She could have her own.**

“No! Ok, just… no!”

 **You’re being difficult about this whole thing!** The symbiote snapped, damn near sounding pouty about it. **Stop it!**

“Eddie what is it?” Anne demanded, unable to help when she didn’t know what the problem was.

There was no playing it off as anything minor now, though Eddie wasn’t about to share the fact that Venom wanted to give its spawn to Anne. Eddie forced himself to calm down enough to tell Anne a different but still justifiable cause for his concerns anyway. “The spawn will need a host after it’s split off. They said that if it stayed with me they would have to kill it because it would try to take over.” True, but not what he was currently freaking out over.

Anne still looked plenty aghast over that much. “A host? Jesus Eddie, all the trouble _you_ have- Wait… wait a minute, maybe you don’t need a host! Those people at the Life Foundation were able to keep the symbiotes alive outside of a host. I saw those pods from the pictures you took of their lab on the news. That means it’s possible at least. I could pull some strings to look into the police reports to try to see what exactly they were doing, how they managed to replicate whatever it was the aliens needed to survive. Maybe we could even come up with some way to _replicate_ the pod. It could at lest buy us time to figure out-

**No! No pods, Eddie. Hated it! We were dying in it! Just not as quickly. Don’t let her!**

“Easy, easy,” Eddie found himself whispering under his breath, trying to soothe the freaked out symbiote now -in a strange twist of fate- as he pressed through the fear exuding from his other half. “They don’t want another pod. They say it was killing them slowly.”

“Well if we can’t put it in a pod and we can’t put it in a person than what does that leave us?” Anne implored.

“What about a bunny?” Dan piped up.

Eddie and Anne both turned to him incredulously.

He didn’t let it deter him. “I’m just saying, there were a bunch of live rabbits taken from that sight according to the news stories. If it has to go into something living maybe we could just slip it into an animal. Bunnies don’t hurt anyone after all. It might be safer.”

“I thought he was here to help,” Eddie huffed, turning accusing eyes to Anne.

“Were you having better luck on your own?” she replied snidely before donning her ‘I’m a lawyer and I’m going to figure this case out’ face once more. “He has a point though, if we aren’t able to figure out a viable solution that actually might end up being our best bet. We can’t in good conscious let it slip into another human. It’s too dangerous. We need a different plan.”

She took a long breath, stepping back from the emotional strife of the situation to look at it logically. “Okay… at least we know nothing is going to happen tonight, so we have some time, just not much. I think we need to focus on what we _do_ know and proceed to make a plan for what happens next after we’ve all gotten some much needed sleep. You especially look like you could use some, Eddie. Sorry, but it’s true.”

“Indeed,” Dan agreed, trying to hide a small yawn behind his hand. “I’ll want to run some tests, find out what I can about your overall health. That’s my first concern as your doctor.”

Dan had never been officially made Eddie’s doctor, and he cringed at the idea of his ex’s boyfriend being so, but he supposed Dan was the closest he had gotten to seeing a doctor in at least three years. A part of him was begrudgingly grateful.

X

In the long run, Venom didn’t have a whole lot more to tell about its splicing. In two weeks time the fission would be ready to take place. Until then the little parasite of his parasite was being formed within Eddie’s body. Where exactly- the symbiote wasn’t saying. Eddie supposed it didn’t want him knowing since he had suggested having Dan cut it out of him. Once formed, and until it was ready to be split off, they had assured Eddie they would protect him from it by keeping it contained within a shell of themself within him. They had assured him he would hardly even notice the fission process at all.

It was almost seven in the morning before Anne and Dan dredged their way out of his apartment, promising to get in contact with him in the next day or two while Anne did some thinking and Dan ran what tests he could for Eddie. Eddie promised Anne that he would sleep.

And eventually he would, whether because he laid down or passed out. Until then, however, he was more hungry than he was tired, though it was a close race, and he still had work to do. He had rummaged in his fridge to make a couple sandwiches that consisted of mostly two inches of salami and bologna stacked between bread to eat while he waited for his oven to heat up a frozen pizza. Once sat back down on his little couch, Venom had emerged from under his skin enough to turn on a movie and settled a little inky blob with two white eyes on his shoulder to watch The Silence of the Lambs… again.

“All those horror movies are gonna give you violent tendencies,” Eddie scoffed as he pulled up his laptop to check his email.

 **People being eaten… it’s just another spin-off of the Food Network as far as I am concerned** , the symbiote snickered in his head. The two eyes just continued to watch from his shoulder.

Eddie ignored them for the moment, tapping into his email and reading a check-in from one of his contacts.

Confirmation!

Eddie didn’t jump up in excitement only because he didn’t want to spill his food, though he did shove the sandwich in his hand towards Venom’s head blob as he sat up straighter. “Eat this for us, Love. I got a new lead.”

More tingling was felt in his shoulder as the symbiote expanded to a full head and maw full of teeth, eagerly taking the sandwich in both fangs and tendrils, freeing up Eddie’s hands.

“Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude,” Venom quoted along with the movie through a full mouth, dropping crumbs all over Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie had been joking about the violent tendencies, but damn…

He tried to refocus on his work. He had been following up on a tip that a local gang, The Lee’s, had been using an elementary school as the perfect cover of innocence to distribute their drugs around town and he now had an informant who thought they knew how the Lee’s were doing that.

According to the email he had just gotten the Lee’s waited for the buses to show up at the school and then would send their girlfriends in to pretend to be there to pick up kids while they actually taped packages of cocaine to the bottoms of certain bus numbers. From there the packages went all around the city as kids were dropped off, the buses never even glanced at by cops, who frequently stopped the known members of the gang. All any of the distributors had to do once they were called and told what buses had their shipments was go out to the publicly posted routes and hang around a stop to grab the bag and then go sell. So simple, so undetectable, so dangerous for those kids once another gang found out and decided to go after the distributors picking them up. They eventually would, Eddie wanted to stop it before that happened.

It was also a perfect story for The Eddie Brock Report. Justice for the kids and exposure for himself, two birds- one stone.

Eddie started pulling up bus schedules and routes, mentally making a checklist of the evidence he needed to gather for a good Eddie Brock Report yet. He would have to scope out the scene, get film and pictures of the girlfriends, dig in and find out the names and past crimes of their boyfriends. Maybe even grab one of the bags himself before a distributor could. He could turn it over to the police after getting a great shot of himself holding it for the report.

**Eddie.**

“Working, Love,” Eddie muttered, not looking up from his laptop.

**Eddie, the pizza…**

_Shit!_ He could smell it burning now and set the laptop down to vault over the back of the couch.

It was burned alright, the crust black and hard as a brick when he got it out. The whole apartment stunk. Venom had eaten the sandwich, but Eddie had still been looking forward to the stupid frozen pizza.

He was still hungry.

He had just wanted… and now it was burned…

Eddie startled and cursed out loud when he found tears slipping uncontrollably from his eyes again. It was so stupid to be so upset. It was a frozen pizza for crying out loud. He had more in the freezer if he would just wait another fifteen minutes or so to make it. But he was just… so hungry _now_. More cursing at his own foolishness and Eddie dropped it in the trash and snapped off the oven out of frustration with himself, as if punishing himself for being this upset over something so dumb. Mood swings indeed.

 _Stupid_ mood swings… this was because of Venom’s-

No, he wasn’t going to point fingers at the symbiote for this anymore. They couldn’t help it any more than he could. Shit, now he just felt bad for being such an ass all over again and the tears were starting to threaten to spill once more. He pressed his fists up against his eyes, knowing it probably didn’t help that he was still sleep deprived.

The soft sound of a cupboard opening and closing behind his back and the tingling of Venom shifting around his skin hardly even registered with him until a huge clawed hand was at his back and Venom’s head and torso were jutting out from his side and turned to face him, towering over him like the biggest, weirdest tumor in the whole world. **Eddie, we were saving this, but it will help you. Here**.

The symbiote’s hand moved in front of him, uncurling to reveal a Milky Way chocolate bar.

It was so… sweet… and Eddie just…

He started crying even harder, so touched that Venom would give him their stashed chocolate. God, he hated this spawning thing.

X

**Eddie…**

“No.”

 **What do you mean ‘no’?** the symbiote huffed, frustrated.

“I don’t want to tonight. I’m tired. Maybe you’ve forgotten why… Go to bed,” Eddie hissed out loud, punching his pillow to try to make it more comfortable as he shifted onto his side.

 **You slept until three today, then you just worked**. It almost sounded like pouting again.

After the prior night when he had learned Venom was spawning, it was true he had slept in the majority of the day, but he had been emotionally drained enough to still be tired while he had been working, and then exhausted enough to turn in early tonight too. He tried not to remind himself that it was also a symptom of the spawning that he would be easier to tire out. “My work puts food in the fridge, Love. Which we have been burning through at an alarming rate. Coincidentally, my work also provides you with tasty heads to bite off… and I’m working on getting a few more lined up for you with this Lee gang business.”

Of course that wasn’t the end of it.

Eddie found himself suddenly flipped onto his back, his bed shaking from the force as black tendrils pushed his boxers down from his hips.

He grabbed them firmly in his hands, yanking them back up. “No! Go to bed. The last time you… _tatered my tots_ you started splicing up a little goo baby. I know that’s not your fault, but I’m just not really in the mood. I didn’t just work all day, I also had _cramps_ all day. Plus my skin feels sensitive so damn near everything feels like sandpaper against it and- Hey!”

Those tendrils ripped his boxers down his hips, the symbiote surging up from Eddie’s stomach to form a massive wall of muscular back facing him. “I felt the cramps too, but I still want _you_ , Eddie. _My_ Eddie. I’m hungry for you. I can take care of you. Last time was more for me, tonight can be for _you_.”

He couldn’t see what Venom was doing, but he felt it as the symbiote leaned forward and that heavy wet tongue slid over the sensitive skin of his pelvis, within inches of his cock. It dragged a slimy hot line between his leg and balls, the tip curling around the base of them lightly in just such a way that had Eddie’s breath catching in his throat.

He placed his hands on the small of the muscular back sprouting up from his stomach. It was cool and spongy to the touch despite the hard image it gave off, incredibly smooth. “Love, I-

His weak protest was cut off further when the tip of that tongue slid around the head of his cock and spiraled down around the shaft, coating it in hot saliva that dripped down his balls as the tongue encircled and squeezed around him. There was a tingling in his thighs where the symbiote’s arms slid down them as it leaned forward to get closer to some of the most sensitive places on Eddie’s body.

It was impossible not to respond, his cock stiffening as that tongue continued to swirl, dragging all around his shaft from head to balls like nothing any human or toy could ever replicate.

Eddie moaned low in the back of his throat, relaxing back in his bed despite himself and holding the small of the symbiote’s formed back in a grip more befitting a lover.

Those hands sunk further into his legs, making them tingle and hum throughout his thighs before his legs were suddenly lifted into the air, bent open to leave him bared to the room. The symbiote took its cues from his pleasure, tasting it second hand just as it did Eddie’s every emotion, embracing it as something for themselves as well.

Left open like this, Eddie’s heart rate kicked up with anticipation and he moaned as his cock stiffened the rest of the way. If this time was for him, then it was possible the symbiote would…

Before the thought could even fully form in his mind, that tongue was retreating from his cock in a slow drag around and around and up to the tip, sweeping back down in a sinful straight line over the sensitive bottom of the shaft and down the center of his balls till it curled over them to the taint.

Eddie could only gasp as the tip of that tongue flicked over his hole, testing. Another flick, and another, and then it started pressing. Softly, and just a bit; its path eased with the saliva that coated it and the spongy texture that narrowed a bit as it pressed inside. It hardly hurt at all, especially as Eddie relaxed into the tingling feel of it, already wanting more.

He groaned deep in his throat as the tip continued to wriggle inside of him as the spongy girth of it started to stretch him. It was his absolute favorite way to be prepped, only really effective with the symbiote, given the length and size of their tongue. It was hot inside him and it drew out every now and then before pressing in a little more. It caved to his body’s tightness, but at the same time demanded it stretch just a little. The wriggling inside of him drove him mad and had him bucking up towards it, wanting it deeper and deeper and relaxing naturally to achieve that.

Those hands pulled out from under the skin of Eddie’s legs and formed properly to envelope over half of his thighs. Their claws scratched and pricked at his skin there, but not enough to hurt or draw blood.

“Love!” Eddie gasped again as that tongue finally reached in far enough to swipe over his prostate. The tip instantly focused in on the little pleasure nub inside of him, flicking shamelessly and lapping against it and Eddie cried out as his back arched and his cock throbbed.

More tentacles must have shifted out of Venom’s own chest and stomach, because although their tongue and hands were busy Eddie could feel the coolness of strands from the symbiote’s body wrapping around the base of his cock and balls once more to squeeze lightly and fondle.

Damn but he wasn’t going to last at all.

 **It’s been a week** , Venom reminded him, that voice still somehow filtering through his mind despite Venom’s head being corporeal outside of him. **You usually don’t last as long when it’s been a while. Just enjoy this, Eddie.**

‘ _Gee… thanks_ ,’ he couldn’t help thinking petulantly to himself. He should have been more used to not taking any offense to the symbiote’s blatant but honest observations, but some were easier to swallow than others even though he knew no offense was meant.

Any lingering petulance was forgotten entirely as the symbiote drove its tongue against his prostate just a little harder, stretching him deliciously as shocks of pleasure caused a tightening in his balls. The strands lacing around his cock clamped down firmly all around the shaft and Eddie let out a cry of protest, knowing he had brought it on himself. Venom had taken his thread of irritation at having any lack of ‘lasting’ pointed out to him and decided to remedy the situation by denying Eddie the _ability_ to release.

Despite the way those thin strands webbed over the entirely of his shaft and clamped down, or how another slid its way around the base of his balls to lightly compress around them as well, Eddie was practically seeing stars. Over top of those denying strands more tentacles were wrapping around to stroke and pump him in time with that tongue fucking him deep. His shoulders were planted to the bed but his legs and hips were lifted and jerking back and forth outside of his control by the symbiote.

They knew how to work him up fast, and Eddie shouted in almost more pain than pleasure as his first attempt to orgasm was denied by the squeeze of those strands.

Breathlessly, he tried to take it back, tried to ask Venom to let him cum, but he didn’t know if he was making any kind of sense at all as that tongue continued to twist and writhe inside of him before grinding hard against his prostate once again.

**You wanted to last, and you cum harder anyway after a few denials.**

Jesus but he was already losing his mind, never sure in the moment if it was heaven or hell. It was a wonderful torture that he could hardly stand and yet didn’t want to stop.

The symbiote wasn’t giving him much of a choice, already working him up to that edge again as it pulled its tongue out of his ass and sent tingling waves all throughout him as it moved and morphed from a torso coming out of his stomach down his body to pool in his groin, making him feel full and tingly throughout everything in his pelvis and upper thighs, his cock straining. Those monstrous hands holding his legs up stayed, though the arms shifted around to the undersides of his knees and planted themselves down against the bed to keep his legs propped up high. Black goo that was the symbiote in its purest form coated Eddie’s thighs and pelvis, and Eddie whined as he felt the symbiote start to seep in to fill the space it had carved out of his ass with its tongue prior.

That tongue had been big, but there was no limit in this aspect as Venom entered him, stretched him, and caressed him from the inside out. Eddie couldn’t move his legs at all, those hands gripping them like vices. Those claws dug in when the muscles flexed to even try. It should have hurt probably, but it just felt incredible, like everything else being done to him so far.

He could only lay back and let it happen, and at this point he was all for that as again his body was filled with bliss when the symbiote had carved out enough room in him to form a thick phallic tentacle of itself within him and started pounding into him. The force behind each thrust could have almost been bruising if it were anywhere else, rocking him up the bed little by little until those planted arms and hands dragged him back down, the pseudo cock within him never letting up an inch.

It had been intimidating the first few times Venom had worked him this hard, but now Eddie knew it wouldn’t really hurt him and, God help him, he loved it so much. Each violent thrust had him feeling so full and overwhelmed in the best of ways and he reached for his cock instinctually, but the symbiote was there to stop him, knocking his hand away with a swipe of tongue that seemed to spring forth from no where before those inky tentacles shot out and wrapped around Eddie’s wrists, further trapping him besides his legs and pulling him down to the center of the bed whenever they propelled his body up the mattress from their force. No escape from the pseudo cock hammering at him in short sharp thrusts.

That tongue again ran a slow line that was so out of place to the pounding force up his balls and cock that Eddie threw his head back and cried out. His body tensed up harshly, but the lacing of that inky body around his cock and balls held him firm again, and again his groan of pleasure turned into a cry of near-pain as he ascended back down again from the denied orgasm.

“P-please… baby- baby, please! Love!”

 **I’ve got us, Eddie** , that deep voice assured him.

The symbiote sunk back into his body and for a moment Eddie almost felt alone, gasping and shuddering on his mattress. His cock was painfully hard but, before he could even try to reach down for it, thick inky strands shot forth from his arms, legs, and chest straight up to the ceiling and pulled him up into the air. Eddie felt the symbiote’s form seeping further out from behind him, looping under his back and legs to cradle him in midair in his room. Already he was trembling with anticipation for what was to happen, having found himself a fan time and time again of the heady sensation caused by being suspended during sex. It made every single nerve that much more sensitive, his body hyperaware as it tried to make sense of the imbalance.

Another strand seeped out from his chest, tickling a bit as it amassed into the symbiote’s head, those milky eyes nearly shining in the darkness of the room down at Eddie, those white teeth gleaming in a permanent grin. Eddie was suddenly reminded of an angler fish, luring tiny morsels to a fang-filled death with its gleam. He felt very much like a tiny morsel in that moment and gave a wonderful shudder.

Those jaws parted and that tongue was back, curling out obscenely through the air towards him and Eddie could only watch transfixed as it drifted up to him. By the time it touched his cheek he was about ready to fall apart at the slimy smooth sensation of it, shuddering again as it slid down his jaw to curl around his neck. It squeezed firmly but gently, not cutting off his air but making it difficult. Eddie had to take shorter breaths as his head buzzed with it all.

He didn’t panic, however, relaxing into it, allowing his head to lull back. His skin started to tingle all over and he knew that the symbiote was spreading over him, coating his torso and cock to sandwich him in midair. The tendrils that had coiled around him before to keep him from cumming were no longer there, and the first time the symbiote’s body thrummed against him Eddie nearly came undone then and there, crying out before that tongue choked off the noise.

 **You feel so good, Eddie** , that voice echoed through his mind again despite the face still peering down at him from his own chest. **You make us feel so good.**

It vibrated and thrummed over top of him again, and it moved its way inside of him once more with a sharp surge that punctuated each word. **WE. Feel. So. Good!**

They all but howled in echoed pleasure his head when they hit his prostate hard and Eddie spasmed in their hold, face dark red with strain but unable to make a sound. It was impossible to know if he was holding his own breath now or if Venom still was as his body tensed and his back arched. Whatever part of the symbiote was buried deep within him rotated around like a fucking corkscrew suddenly and Eddie’s eyes rolled up and white spurts of a heavy orgasm shot out into the goo that was all too willing to catch it.

The symbiote felt his pleasure and echoed it back to him till it became like two singers harmonizing into the same cord as they both rode the heady bliss. Their bodies and minds and souls once more syncing up into that blissful and perfect ‘we’.

It only lasted a few minutes, unfortunately, both jarred from the connection when the tendrils affixing them to the ceiling slipped in their distraction and Eddie let out a shout of surprise before landing in the center of his bed, somehow managing to not break it. The symbiote did a bit of a splat on top of him on impact and retracted up into its purest form of a black shapeless mass upon Eddie’s chest, quivering when his arms instinctively wrapped around it to hold it, like it had actually been _startled_ by the abrupt fall.

“S’ok, you’re okay right?” Eddie tried to reassure them, not used to seeing Venom shook over something so small. Maybe it wasn’t just Eddie feeling those pregnancy symptoms after all then.

The blob allowed his arms to hold them for a few moments, sinking in a little bit into his chest to keep their connection, and then resting there atop him. **We are uninjured**. That voice assured him, though it sounded exhausted.

Eddie supposed he was pretty exhausted himself, tired even before they had started this. He really needed to start putting his foot down with Venom when it came to no meaning no, but with the end result always so…

A thought occurred to him belatedly. “This stuff doesn’t hurt the spawn at all, does it?”

He felt a ripple of mild surprise come through as the symbiote registered his meaning. **No, the spawn is safe**.

Initially there was relief, which confused and frustrated Eddie more than anything that he should feel _relief_. It was a bag of worms he didn’t want to open tonight being already so stretched thin and exhausted to the point of near-pass out. With a defeated sigh Eddie closed his eyes, letting it all go for the night. “Good night, Love.”

 **Good night, Eddie**.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut wasn't actually planned for this chapter, but then there it was.  
> Subscribe for updates on chapter 4 and please leave thoughts, opinions, or critiques about this work before you go.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Does anyone remember Gary? The Marvel cameraman from both the comics and movies that (in the movies) had a bad Tony Stark tattoo on his arm? Yeah, we all love Gary. Well, he’s here in this too, along with a brief over-the-top Marvel-style action sequence!}

 

 

“That’s one of them now. No doubt about it.” Eddie muttered out loud around the straw of his jumbo-sized double-chocolate shake. He put down the Doritos he had been pigging out on so he could pick up his camera after wiping the cheese powder off on his jeans.

He set his camera’s viewfinder on one of the known girlfriends of the Lee gang as she approached a school bus. She easily stood out from the other mom’s there to pick up their kids, dressed a lot more risqué and her face sunken from drug use and a hard life. Most of the girlfriends had that look to them after a few years. She hugged her designer clutch to her protectively as she stalked around the buses, trying to find the one with the right numbers for the drop she was supposed to make. Eddie took a couple candid shots of her as she went. “You’re getting this too right?”

Sitting next to him in the driver’s seat, Gary -a professional cameraman and old colleague of his that had also become disenchanted with New York after eventually receiving a restraining order from Tony Stark- focused his little hand-held video camera to capture some footage. He pulled his baseball hat down further on his face to be more covert. “Hell yeah! Damn, those shorts are deeper in her ass than any man ever hoped to reach.” It hardly sounded like a complaint at all, more like jealousy.

 **We’ve been deeper** , Venom whispered through his head scandalously.

“Shush!” Eddie hissed, his face going beet-red.

Unaware of the symbiote in Eddie’s head at all, Gary glanced over at him in mild surprise before shrugging and going back to filming. Eddie would sometimes call him in on these jobs to act as his cameraman for The Eddie Brock Report. “My mistake, didn’t realize you were a prude about such things. I’m just saying, if these are the perks that being a member of the Lee gang gets you, then sign me- Jesus, Mary, Joseph!” he hissed as she bent over double at the back of one of the buses. She took out a taped up paper bag from her clutch. There was Velcro already attached to it and she simply peeled off the backing and slapped it up under the bus before taking a hike.

Just like that it was all set.

Eddie had set this up in the span of just four days, needing to move fast on it. He also had been so diligent with this gig because he welcomed the distraction from Venom’s spawning, burying himself in his work rather than dealing with the growing issue. There wasn’t much else to do yet anyway.

Aside from always being hungry and going broke feeding them both, there wasn’t much else he had to deal with yet. Dan had called him yesterday to say all his tests were healthy and normal, though his hormones were a bit imbalanced and his body could stand to take some additional vitamin supplements. He had had the gall to suggest prenatal vitamins.

Anne was still trying to come up with a solution, and had the results coming in from the lab pods on what kind of enviromental replication they had created for the symbiotes as a backup plan even though Eddie had nixed it. He had faith in her, but it was hard not to feel anxious if he let himself think about it for more than a minute, so he worked instead.

“Ok, ready?” Eddie prompted, unfastening his seat belt and getting ready to run out. He took one more long drink of the shake Venom had insisted on getting after they had polished off about five thousand calories of junk food. Jesus, he still felt hungry though. “Just like we talked about, stay with me and keep the camera on. Especially if she sees me and is stupid enough to double back for a confrontation, just keep filming. God, I hope she is… that would be a great shot.”

Gary didn’t need told twice, already halfway out and ready to roll, camera up as he was moving after Eddie.

Eddie focused in towards Venom for a moment as he rushed by kids and waiting mothers. The symbiote coiled within him, but without any real intent. They had already been told time and again that they would not be allowed to come out no matter what, nor eat anyone just yet. “Remember, if you come out in front of all these kids-

 **I know** , Venom snapped inside of his head, huffy. **No chocolate and no TV for a month. I know already. You’re on your own, Eddie, see if I care**. 

Eddie couldn’t help the smile pulling at his lip at the symbiote’s fit. “Love you too,” he whispered as he reached the bus, turning around to face Gary once more.

The slightly taller man planted his feet and brought the camera up, giving a thumbs up to indicate Eddie was centered in the shot and could start his report when ready. They would edit it into sequence later, so Eddie picked up with where the story would be at this point in the official Eddie Brock Report. “School buses have one of the most important jobs in the world, safely transporting your kids to and from school. Here at a local school in San Fransisco, however, they have been given another job… safely transporting untold amounts of cocaine all around town for the infamous Lee gang.” Eddie backed up towards the bus, keeping himself towards the camera the whole time. “What the Lee’s know that you don’t, is that while you’re picking up your child from the local bus stop…” For added effect, Eddie stooped down to locate and pull out the package. “A dealer is also there, picking up his own little-

“Hands in the air, right now!”

Eddie glanced over to his right where the command had come from. A cop was standing there, of all things, with one of the school security guards next to him, looking all kinds of pissed off at Eddie and Gary. The cop had a hand on his tazor in warning, but hadn’t pulled it out yet.

Holding a cocaine brick under a kid’s bus wasn’t exactly the moment that Eddie wanted to put his hands in the air for a cop. He put his empty hand out to try to reassure the officer that he meant no harm, staying squatted down. “Whoa, no you got the wrong idea. I’m not- we’re reporters. We were going to turn this over after I did my report… I’m not planting anything. I can show you-

“Eddie, _run_!” Gary shouted, panicked by the officer enough to turn with his camera and take off.

“Gary, no!”  

The tazer snagged onto the back of Gary’s shirt right away and Gary let out a yelp before going down twitching.

Eddie was only half on his feet before another officer came out of nowhere and roughly tackled Eddie to the ground, pinning him down. “Stay down! You two idiots don’t even realize all the work you’ve just ruined with this stunt.”

Eddie couldn’t pay any mind to the officer on his back, or the pain of his arm being twisted nearly out of its socket. Venom was stirring within him, growling and bristling at the threat despite the promise to remain hidden within. **Eddie, let me bite him! We can kill him easily! Snap him in two!**

“No! Don’t hurt him!”

“You’re buddy brought his pain on himself by trying to make a break for it. We don’t plan to keep hurting him if he stops resisting, but we will be taking the both of you back to the precinct with us.”

Indeed they were both handcuffed and quickly hauled by the officers back to their squad car. Eddie whispered under his breath to Venom nearly the whole time, trying to reassure them that there was no real danger at hand and that killing the officers would only cause far more trouble than the irritations of being taken downtown. He was far less concerned with the officer thinking he was crazy than he was with Venom going on a rampage on two police officers at an elementary school. He would only have to show them Youtube segments of his show to prove he was who he said and that he was a reporter rather than a criminal. It wasn’t the first time he had had to talk his way out of trouble with the cops, though some times were more difficult than others. They had taken Gary’s camera, which would further back his story.

Speaking of- Eddie shot Gary a glare from the seat next to him in the back of the cruiser. “Why the hell did you run? We could have easily proven who we were and what we were doing.”

Gary was red faced and nearly teary-eyed next to him, clearly not as used to being handcuffed and taken in for verification and barely keeping his head at all now. “I’m on probation,” he hissed out, which was news to Eddie. “You don’t understand how scary that judge was about my restraining order. He said if I ever found myself in cuffs again he would throw the book at me!”

Eddie found himself squinting as he tried to make sense of Gary’s ‘logic’. “You- you were never even imprisoned. You just got a restraining order and a slap on the wrists, you idiot. You’re not on probation just because the cops have picked you up before. Or rather- because the cops _dragged_ you out of a laundry shoot leading up to Stark’s penthouse!”

For a moment Gary didn’t seem hardly upset at all anymore. “Oh, well then… never mind… I guess we’re good.”

 **Moron** , Venom snarled from inside of Eddie.

Eddie found himself in firm agreement.

The officers up front had been listening in, of course, and the one driving- the same one that had tackled Eddie down- had been pissed off for the last couple blocks since pulling away from the school. “You both are far from ‘good’. You two screw ups just killed a setup we’ve been working on for a _month_ in an effort to get our hands on a distributer that might testify against the Lee’s!”

“Paddy, try to calm down,” his partner mumbled in the seat next to him, none too pleased himself. “We’ll just have to try again another time.” 

“As if we could!” the cop growled through his teeth, knuckles white on the wheel as those green eyes of his pegged Eddie with a blistering glare through the rearview mirror. “Those drugs you just lifted were to go to a particular distributer we had enough dirt on to make sing if only we could succeed in catching him receiving that package red-handed. We might have been able to shut all this down. Now he won’t get them, our boys waiting at the stop won’t make the bust, and –worse yet- the Lee’s just got tipped off beyond a doubt that we’re onto them. You think they don’t watch their drops? I guarantee you- If we have any reason to think for even a _moment_ that you tipped them off intentionally…”

Oh Jesus, “No!” Eddie promised. “I swear we had no clue you guys were there or we would have left it to you. We’re on your side! I do exposés on crime for a living, I’m Ed-

“Eddie Brock,” Officer ‘Paddy’ finished for him. “I know who you are, and we are hardly on the same side. I knew a few of those cops in New York that had the misfortune of listening to you on the Sin-Eater case. Yours wasn’t the only career that suffered for your screw up there. As for your… friend here, it sounds like he’s familiar with cops too, but not as a strictly law-abiding citizen.”

Damn. Eddie went tight-lipped at that.

**I can eat him now?**

Tempting, but…

“Just be quiet,” he muttered under his breath.

“I wish all my passengers gave themselves such great advice,” Paddy huffed.

**There are no kids around anymore. We can eat whatever heads we want.**

“Stuff it,” Eddie hissed, earning another glare from the officer in the rearview, no doubt thinking it was meant for him. Eddie was probably going to get his head bumped against the door when he was eventually taken out of the car.

The other officer was on the radio, giving the heads up that the set up was off, muttering about how two idiots had blown the whole thing to dispatch.

Eddie let out a long sigh and leaned back in his seat, opting to look out the window and pretend he was anywhere else at the moment. That was the only reason he saw it coming.

The car pulling up in the lane next to them was a scruffy Buick with a set of those fuzzy dice on the rearview that no one seemed to own in real life anymore. Were does someone even get those anymore? Ebay? It was because of the novelty of the dice that Eddie glanced to the men inside the car, staring back at him with their windows rolled down. Eddie’s blood ran cold with recognition. He had put his time in and done his research. He was able to place instantly that at least two of the men out of the three in the car were part of the Lee gang. The driver looked like a higher member named Belton. The one in the back had a particular gang tattoo on his face that told Eddie that it was Ringo Desoto, one of the Lee gang’s hitters. His eyes were trained not on Eddie, but on the back of Officer ‘Paddy’s’ head.

“HEY-

Before Eddie could say anything more, the Lee’s driver punched it and the passenger next to him brought out a gun, opening fire on the squad car.

Paddy was quick, thank God. Where his fellow officer started looking all about in confusion as the first shots rang out and punctured the car- Paddy ducked down and turned the car sharply to the right to cut off their shots and put a bit more car than window between them. Eddie had ducked as well as a shot planted into the door next to him.

Gary screamed from next to him, his pitch high enough that Venom bristled inside of Eddie for a moment.

**Eddie!**

Venom couldn’t come out when the cops had Eddie Brock locked up in their car, but the Lees were cutting through traffic to come around on them, looking to get a second chance.

Gary ducked down in the seats and started praying and cursing in equal measure. Eddie covered him in part as he also ducked down; keeping his head just high enough to watch Paddy swerve them down a side-street and his partner shouted for backup into the radio.

“It’s the Lee’s men. Ringo and Belton!” Eddie shouted up to Paddy, who was doing his damnedest to out maneuver them. More shots went off, at least one of them clanging into the trunk behind Eddie and Gary.

Paddy swore as he swerved across traffic to try to get into an alley, away from innocent bystanders. The Lees couldn’t get next to them in the alley, but Belton did gain some of the lost ground running up on them from behind. Eddie lifted his head for just moment, barely able to brace when the squad car was rammed and they all jerked violently from the impact. Paddy was able to keep control, but barely.

Another shot clipped into the back right tire and the car fishtailed before Belton rammed into them again, not letting up until the car went into a full spin despite Paddy wrestling with the wheel.

“Hang on!” Paddy shouted as the car tilted and started to roll onto its side.

As if Eddie or Gary could, their hands cuffed behind their backs. The squad car rolled and the only reason Eddie and Gary didn’t go flying was because Venom was defiant enough of Eddie to coil around himself and Gary both and pin them perfectly between the roof and floor with a couple thin but strong inky bracers made of itself. Gary hadn’t stopped screaming, so Eddie could only hope he didn’t noticed being wrapped in symbiote at all as the car rolled. He was sure neither cop was paying attention at that point, Paddy’s partner still shouting maydays through the radio even as they rolled. The car stopped on its roof and the glass shattered and sparks started flying as they continued to be pushed down the alleyway by the Lee gang.

Eddie found himself cursing right along with Gary until the car finally came to a stop. Only then did the symbiote slowly set them down against the roof and receded into Eddie. As grateful as he was to not be scraping the asphalt anymore, a whole new world of danger was about to hit them as Eddie heard the sound of car doors opening from the Buick behind them.

They were going to die if he didn’t let Venom out. The symbiote was already pressing at the edges of his skin as it was to get out and go after their attackers. Doing so, however, was sure to blow Eddie’s cover. There would be no way around that. Both officers were not only fully conscious, but also were fully aware of the danger, drawing their guns and dropping themselves from their seats with the release of their seatbelts. Paddy was quick to turn himself over and drag himself to the back area of the car with them.

“Stay down!” he ordered in a hissed whisper, putting himself between Eddie and the busted out windows, taking aim at the shoes slowly approaching them.

**Eddie!**

“It’s going to be okay,” Eddie hissed, though he was lying and knew Venom would know that. Their outlooks were to be gunned down or revealed as the city’s homicidal menace/hero.

“Yes it is,” Paddy assured him under his breath, much more confidently as the second pair of shoes stepped into his line of sight just behind the first set. He aimed on those, and fired once, his aim dead accurate as it ripped through the shin of one of the gang. If he had hit the first guy the second would have run back to the car, but taking down the second one caused the first to hesitate in running toward the immediate danger to get past it to the car. As the second guy, Ringo, hit the ground Paddy jumped on the confusion and pulled himself out through the busted window, ignoring the way the glass tore up his back to protect them all as he spun around and aimed on the first guy that had only half made up his mind to run back to the car, stumbling backward more-like as he tried to aim his gun on the floored officer. Paddy put a shot through the first guy’s shoulder, which convinced him to turn and run.

In that time, however, Ringo had aimed his own gun on Paddy, laying within inches of his own feet.

“Venom,” Eddie hissed.

 **Copy** , the symbiote grunted in his head, picking up on the intent behind their name being hissed to help somehow. Keeping covert, Venom shot an extension of themselves out of Eddie’s lower back where it was less noticeable and planted it on the concrete outside of the car on the opposite side where no one would see it, ricocheting up against the side of the flipped vehicle to push it just an inch or two closer to Paddy and Ringo.

It distracted Ringo as the car jerked towards him; it didn’t distract Paddy.

The officer took the shot, planting a bullet in the chest of the hit-man. Ringo fell back against the concrete, struggling to keep taking breaths. Venom returned to Eddie.

Paddy wasn’t done. He sprung to his feet, his partner just then attempting to wiggle out of the window on the other side to back him up. Eddie could only watch as Paddy’s feet carried him quickly to the rear of the car, where he stooped down next to it for cover as he unloaded a few more rounds at the Buick, which sounded like it was quickly peeling away in reverse. The sounds of additional sirens in the distance gave Eddie hope that maybe they wouldn’t get too far.

As soon as the Buick was in full retreat Paddy returned to Ringo, administering first responder’s aid, encouraging him not to die of all things. His partner was asking Paddy if he was okay, but Paddy’s focus was only on keeping the downed man from dying.

Eddie’s attention was pulled away from the scene by Gary, who had slowed his screaming enough to get out a few fairly coherent words in his panic. “New York was never this bad! Eddie… I quit!”

 **Pussie** , Venom hissed through Eddie’s head judgmentally.

* * *

 

It wasn’t until almost seven o’clock that night that Eddie and Gary had finally reached the station via a backup car to give accounts of the shooting. It didn’t really calm down until almost eight, and then everything got very boring very fast as Eddie and Gary had to explain themselves for ruining the cocaine bust again and again. No one doubted their stories, but they still had to explain it several times to several pissed off officers. To make it worse Eddie was _starving_. Venom had been quiet within him for hours, but the symbiote’s hunger seeped through him. They had really wanted some of those heads.

Actually, it was surprising how quiet they were being given their hunger, though it made it easier for Eddie to pay attention to the proceedings leading up to his eventual release. It was almost ten when he was let out into the lobby and caught sight of ‘Paddy’.

One of the other officers taking his reports had mentioned the officer’s real name was Patrick Mulligan, one of their finest on the force. He was the spearhead of their efforts against the gang’s shot-callers, and thus was the main target of the Lee’s hitters, though they had never before tried anything this blatant.

Feeling guilty that he had accidently messed up the guy’s sting operation… and possibly removed any doubts the Lee’s had that their bus operation was about to get the kibosh thanks to officer Mulligan… Eddie made his way over to the officer as he signed a few documents for dispatch.

Mulligan saw him approach awkwardly, rolling those green eyes with a small huff before turning his attention pointedly back to the folders before him.

“Look, Officer Mulligan… Paddy…” a sharp look from the cop had him backtracking, “Mulligan then, sorry. That is- I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to screw up your-

“Everything,” Mulligan cut him off with another vicious glare. “The bust was just that thanks to you and your little show… a bust. The Lee’s will find a new way to distribute their products for sure now, which if we’re able to figure out what it is it will still take _months_ more to set up another operation like this. Best of all, thanks to the Lee’s retaliation and the danger it put everyone in, I’m now being benched for the rest of the month with pay until the heat dies down so they stop sending their hitters after me. Thanks for being ‘sorry’ though, _ass_.” He all but tore off his badge and slapped it down on top of the folder of documents he had just finished signing.

Officer Mulligan turned and stormed through the lobby towards the doors. The dispatch officer pegged Eddie with a squinted glare of their own when he made the mistake of looking to them for any kind of affirmation. “That means we’re down our best officer for the month. Ass.”

Eddie should have dropped it and slinked away, but he didn’t become an investigative reporter because he knew when to quit and go home.

He hustled after Mulligan, catching up to him just outside of the doors. “Well I _am_ sorry,” he hissed, “But you didn’t exactly achieve nothin’ out of this. I’m talking about Ringo and Belton. Belton you have positive identification was there. You find him and you can pin him, and then you can try to make him sing because if he doesn’t he’s wanted for enough to put him away for at least twenty years… and guards at the big house don’t care much for those that attempted to gun down another officer. Besides him, you got Ringo, aka: The Mulcher, one of the biggest hitters for the Lee’s and a former hitter of the AS18’s. I was told by one of the other officers he didn’t die after all.

“You got way more today than just some two-bit dealer ready to turn over his supply man to you- who would _still_ be at least ten pegs down the ladder from the shot-callers. Today you got a man in your custody who answers _directly_ to them, and you know another one is at least close at hand right now and probably looking for a hospital to treat his wounds. Plaster his face all across the news. Or I can! I can put him in my report, maybe even if you gave me an exclusive interview I can-

“Fuck you and fuck your interview!” Mulligan bellowed, his face red. “What I have right now is a hit man in critical care with a 30% chance of surviving at all, a growing ulcer, and a target on my back. You think I want more attention given to any of that? What I want is _justice_. I’m the one called to the scene after the Lee’s ruin yet another person’s life… or take it. That hitter should be in jail paying for those lives he’s ruined, not critical care where he might escape paying for them at all. That would be too easy on him! Prison is where he would have ended up given proper procedure and this little thing I tend to like to follow called ‘ _the law’_. So do me a favor and piss off with your off-brand of social-warrior ‘justice’.”

He stormed across the road rather than calling for an Ubber, no doubt heading towards the infamous cop-bar down on the corner from the station, Mahoney’s, to blow off steam from his bad day. Some off-duty officers were already waiting for him at the door.

Eddie turned and started to head back into the lobby so he could contact an Ubber- or try to squeeze one more ride from Gary before the man never spoke to him again- but his body jerked back around towards the bar again outside of his control and Venom’s voice pounded urgently through his head. **Eddie!**

“Don’t do that,” Eddie growled in frustration. “What is it?”

**That one, Mulligan… he’s a good guy… isn’t he? A hero?**

A _good_ guy- it was hard using that word on anyone seconds after being told by them to fuck off, but all things considering… “Yeah I guess he’s a pretty good- wait… no!”

 **Yes!** Venom countered, his voice gleefully triumphant.

“No! He’s a cop!”

**No, he’s ours!**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those not familiar with Toxin or Mulligan, I highly recommend the 6 edition mini series on them made by Marvel... nothing after that though, as they ruin them for no FK#* reason.  
> https://anotherramblingfangirl.tumblr.com/post/173356476130/toxin-is-precious


	5. Chapter 5

Eddie wasn’t too surprised when he got a call from Anne the next day while sitting in his living room, though he had to jerk the phone away from his head at first for how loud she screamed at him. He got a vague concept of ‘Thank God you’re okay!’ as he tried to recover his hearing. Apparently Anne had seen last nights news reports of a dangerous downtown chase and shootout between officers and members of the Lee gang and heard something about ‘Eddie Brock and an unknown accomplice were taken into custody’.

“I’m fine, Anne, I promise,” Eddie tried to sooth her, switching through the news channels hoping he might see it for himself. No such luck; he was already old news replaced by reports of Wakanda spreading their efforts to enrich impoverished communities in Harlem.

He told himself it was definitely worth having his free publicity cut short for that, but another part of him still grumbled as his ratings could have really used the boost.

“We’re both fine,” he reiterated, meaning himself and Venom. “However, I expect a lot of tickets for very minor infractions for the rest of the month, courtesy of the local police department. It’s so hard to make friends in today’s society, I swear,” he rambled sardonically, tossing himself down on his couch and pulling the bucket of cheap spaghetti he had gotten from Cheesy Ramone’s on the way home into his lap. “Venom, say hi to Anne,” he invited offhandedly, though Venom would clearly already know who it was and everything being said.

The symbiote continued its silence that it had been maintaining up to that point.

Anne wouldn’t know that it was a vain attempt on Eddie’s part at getting a response from the symbiote that had been giving Eddie the silent treatment all morning in response to Eddie refusing to let them have Paddy as a host for their spawn the previous night. He had nearly had to drag them both into a cab, but he had managed it, putting his foot down.

They had argued the whole way home over it, and in the end Venom just opted to give him the silent treatment all night. The alien could be quite petty when they didn’t get their way, an unfortunate trait Eddie dealt with the best he could in the year they had been together. This one had lasted longer than the others, and Eddie wondered if it wasn’t partially because of the symbiote’s own mood swings and hormones amplifying it.

“Eddie,” Anne’s voice was back in his ear, “I’m glad everyone’s okay, but the news programs made it sound like you had been taken in in _connection_ to the gangs. Another almost made it sound like you had been hurt, talking about a man being rushed to the hospital and saying you were in the cruiser that was flipped over!”

Eddie opened his mouth to protest the inaccuracies of the news as they rushed out a story, but he stopped with his mouth agape as a new thought occurred to him. “Which hospital?”

Anne was already on to him. “Not the one Dan works at if you were hoping to pump him for information on whoever it was they _did_ take in. Even if they had, don’t you dare, Eddie. Don’t you ever dare!”

Her tone was so firm and so final that Eddie almost got a chill from the implied wrath he would face if he ever put Dan in such a spot for his own work. Eddie backed off, though the back of his mind still toyed with the idea that maybe if Ringo hadn’t been in Dan’s hospital last night, maybe his buddy Belton had passed through… “Okay okay, never mind. I’m not working today anyway,” Eddie relented over the phone. “My story fell through and until I figure out a new one I’m just at home today to nurse some bruises and scrapes from yesterday.”

Anne let out a deep sigh of relief over the phone. “Good to hear you’re mostly okay at least. How have you been holding up otherwise? You know, with… everything else?”

“Actually I’m glad you called because I wanted to ask you if you had any ideas about that yet? The no pod and no human hosts plan…”

Another sigh; this one longer and heavier.

Venom was silent inside of him, but Eddie could feel their focus intensifying along with his on Anne.

“I’m trying to come up with a better option than a bunny, Eddie, really I am. I got reports of what they were pumping into the pods, but not what the mix was, and even if we had Venom’s help in perfecting the mix to something more comfortable, we just don’t have that time and it would put both you and them at risk trying to figure it out. Most of the chemicals are poisonous to humans. If it is indeed close to their own world’s atmosphere you would never be able to survive outside of Venom’s form. As for a new plan outside of that or anything that might harm the spawn…. That bunny that Dan mentioned is looking better and better and I’m not foolish enough to think that’s a long-term solution. I’m not coming up with much, Eddie.”

Damn, they only had about a week left… Eddie tried to remain calm, but his leg bounced anxiously.

“Eddie, I need to ask you something too, well- ask Venom something anyway… how often do they spawn? You’ve had them for almost a year and I just need to know if this is going to be a regular ordeal?”

Oh god. He hadn’t even let himself think about more down the road in all this mess.

“V-Venom?” he whispered with a shaking breath, praying for enough mercy from the sulking symbiote to answer Anne’s question that now Eddie desperately also needed to know the answer to.

The symbiote shifted inside of him a bit. Just when Eddie thought they would have no intention of answering at all, they spoke in a hiss through his head. **Every three to six years here on Earth, irregularly. Less if food is scarce.**

It should have felt like a bigger mercy than Eddie was giving it credit for, finding out they didn’t have to deal with this every year or something, but still it was hard to feel assured as he repeated it to Anne.

She sucked in a breath between her teeth, but sounded a bit less nervous to know what to expect. “Okay... Eddie just continue to sit tight for now, I’ll talk to Dan tonight when he gets home and get back to you when we have some sort of solution. You… you might want to prepare Venom for whatever that might have to be.”

Venom growled through his head, **We HAVE a solution!** The image of Paddy accompanying it, but Eddie didn’t repeat that to Anne. He could read between the lines of what she was saying. They were running out of possibilities that would protect the rest of the populace from a second symbiote. Venom picked up on this strain of thought through Eddie, bristling and coiling protectively around something hidden within itself. Eddie knew what it probably was.

“I’ll um, I’ll talk to you later, Anne, thanks.”

“Oh, oh, oh! Anne prompted as Eddie prepared to hang up, “One last thing, Dan asked that I check if you’re taking your vitamin supplements.”

Eddie cringed into his spaghetti bucket. “The prenatals? Is it even _safe_ for me to take those?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“They’re meant for _women_. Won’t they… mess up my insides or something?”

“What?!”

Eddie grimaced. “I don’t know, Anne, it just seems weird to take them,” Eddie whined.

He thought for a moment he heard a snort like muffled laughter on the other side of the line. “No Eddie, they will not ‘mess up’ your insides any more than sticking a tampon up your butt would. Are you afraid they’ll turn you into a girl or something?”

She was definitely laughing at him then.

“I already kind of turn into a rampaging monster every so often because of something inside my body,” he grumbled, “You can’t blame me for being overly cautious.”

Anne erupted into a fit of laughter then and Eddie hung up the phone. Easy for her to laugh, she didn’t have a monster inside her body giving her mood swings and cravings. Eddie didn’t figure that was something he would ever dare say to her out loud. It would probably just get him a lecture about periods and other gross ‘perfectly natural’ stuff.

Venom was back to silence inside of him. Eddie tried to draw them out of their sulking. “Hey love, you wanna help me eat this spaghetti or are you gonna just let me eat it for us both?”

Silence.

It almost had Eddie feeling bad that they were ignoring him, so used to the opposite at this point. “Come on, you love eating this stuff. I can do that thing you like where I press the noodles into a ball for you and you can pretend you’re eating bloody brains,” he coaxed, trying to draw them out of their slump.

More silence.

Eddie had one more secret weapon, clicking over to VuDu to pull up his digital copy of ‘The Thing’. He had lost count of the number of times Venom had watched it, easily their favorite. They almost always said the lines along with it. The issue was getting them to shush if anything.

Even as the movie played, that silence persisted, if anything it felt like the symbiote was turning their focus pointedly away from it within Eddie.

Eddie snapped off the movie and set the bucket on the coffee table in front of him, letting out a long sigh. “Love, talk to me, please.”

Nothing but a thread of petulant irritation floated back at him from the symbiote within. There was also a tinge of frustrated sadness that was sour enough that it was probably hormonally driven instead of genuine. Especially given that Eddie saying no to Officer Mulligan shouldn’t have actually hurt the symbiote’s feelings.

“Love, I know you wanted Mulligan, but he’s a cop. That’s only the first reason it wouldn’t work.”

**He’s a good guy. You said a good guy should take the spawn.**

“… I don’t think I ever really said that,” Eddie muttered, but it was hard to always remember what thoughts were his and which ones were Venom’s after a while. _Someone_ had said it. He still doubted it was him though.

Venom continued. **We saw him, the officer is good. A hero already. He even tried to preserve the bad guy’s life. This new spawn will have a lot of inherent blood lust ingrained deep into it. It will need someone like that if it is to be a hero like us. If it is not a hero, we will eventually have to come back and kill it… or it could potentially find and kill us. It will have almost no impulse control being so new, and the officer’s very job is to control the uncontrollable; to regulate that which would eventually become toxic to your society.**

The symbiote hummed to itself in thought as it started to shift to Eddie’s shoulder and slip up through his skin to form a second head. “Hmmm, that has a nice ring to it… perhaps _Toxin_ is a suitable name. A variation of my own. I’ll make sure it knows it before we split apart.”

“Don’t name it,” Eddie moaned weakly, burying his head in his hands, hearing his father’s voice telling him if you name something you definitely mean to keep it… so Eddie was lucky his mother had already named him before she passed on. That second part didn’t apply so much as the first. “Can’t we just go back to calling it the ‘spawn’?”

“Spawn is a terrible name for something. It’s probably already trademarked anyway. No, Toxin will be this one’s name.”

“I don’t see much of an improvement personally,” Eddie grumbled.

“You are being difficult again!” Venom snapped, turning smaller but still plenty sharp little fangs towards him in a growl. “You have made this whole process more difficult than it has to be. Everything _you_ want to do risks the chances of this spawning being a glorious triumph upon your world. Giving it to the officer is the safest option for everyone. The spawn, the humans, and even you and I, Eddie. My kind tends to produce stronger with each continuation of our line… it’s half the reason we abandon them afterwards… so they do not turn around and _kill_ us shortly after. They are prone to try.”

Eddie’s eyes bugged at this new information. “The little ball of goo you showed me? That could turn around and _kill_ us?”

“A little goes a long way. It will have its matured full strength within days of the separation, and later on will come control and experience. The officer doesn’t seem to want to kill those he even truly hates, like the hitman, or _you_ Eddie, he protected you when we could not despite hating you.”

“I’m not arguing that Mulligan is a good guy. I’m arguing that giving him the spawn isn’t a good idea.”

“Then tell us, Eddie. What exactly is a _good_ idea?” Venom snarled at him through its maw of tiny teeth floating in a little blob head next to his face. “Give us one. Just _one_ , Eddie. Come up with one _good_ idea of what we can do with this spawn and we will do it.”

Anne couldn’t even come up with anything, and with the symbiote growling in his face…

The head moved in closer, impatient. “We’re. Waiting. Eddie.”

  

* * *

 

 

“This is such a bad idea.” Eddie hissed under his breath, trudging his way down the street towards Mahoney’s Bar. He made an effort to keep his head turned away from the police station further down the block, as if the whole building might somehow see him and recognize him as an unwelcomed person.

 **We got this, Eddie. We’re ready for the split now.** Venom assured him from within. **You got the backup plan?**

Eddie let out another low groan and ducked into the alley next to Mahoney’s. “You mean Mr. David Hopper-field?” Eddie brought the bag he was wearing around to in front of him to unzip, checking on the little brown bunny he had picked up from Mrs. Chen’s peddling cousin earlier that day. It continued to sit inside, nibbling on the handful of carrot sticks Eddie had tossed in for him. The bag was ruined, Eddie could smell it, but that was hardly his main concern at the moment. The bunny was with them as a backup plan to shove the new symbiote into should it… _reject_ Paddy, another possibility Eddie couldn’t allow himself to focus too hard on. He was already sweating bullets.

Anne had gotten back to him the other night, and it hadn’t been good. She had basically told him that the best she could come up with for the spawn was a combination of a few things they had already discussed, placing the spawn into an animal and then trying to keep that animal in a contained pod, but she didn’t like that an animal would suffer through it. The best they could do for the world populace… was even worse in Eddie’s opinion. She had informed Eddie to merely give them the delicate option that if he and Venom agreed to it being the best option to take together… Dan would let them use the MRI machine if they needed to for the spawn.

There was no way for this spawning to happen without someone paying for it. That’s just the way it was. But if it could turn into something positive down the road… wasn’t that the best option in a deep bag of bad options?

Eddie didn’t honestly know anymore. He had absolutely no clue what was really the right course to take here. All he knew was his insides churned even without Venom’s help at the thought of causing the spawn his beloved had made of themselves to suffer through either a termination or a life of containment. He had told Anne he would think about it, but his mind was pretty much made up. Telling her would only cause her to try to stop him or become burdened by the feeling of being an accomplice in this for not having stopped it. He would have to take his licks from her later.

It was still a few days short of a full three weeks, but Venom had assured him they would be ready, and together they came up with some semblance of a plan.

A _bad_ plan.

It was the best they had, but there was no way any of this was a good plan.

 **We can do this Eddie, just get him alone. The rest will be easy**.

Yeah sure, things were going to get _easier_ after the spawn was passed on to someone else… surrrreeeee.

Eddie zipped up his bag again and slung it back over his shoulder carefully before heading back out towards the front door. There were a few cops mulling around just inside, fresh off duty and getting drinks together to unwind.

Eddie kept his head down, trying to just act natural, but he could already feel eyes darting towards him that were trained to look for individuals acting shady. He hadn’t even made it past the first pool table when someone called out to him. “Hey, do I know you? You look familiar…”

Eddie glanced to the officer shooting pool, a squat little man with a thick waistline and thin hairline. The patch on his shirt read Murphy. He didn’t know this officer, but he waited for the man to point him out somehow as the ass that had cost Mulligan his sting operation.

“You on TV?” Murphy asked, slow cogs clicking around in his head.

It had already been made clear to Eddie that the Eddie Brock Report wasn’t popular either here and he held his breath as he waited for the hammer to drop. 

“I got it! You sort of look that that one sportscaster on Channel 10 News. You know, ‘Touchdooooowwwwwwnnnnn, and get up- with Mike Masters’! You related to him?”

“Uh… no,” Eddie muttered, trying to inch away before even more people started looking at him thanks to this guy impersonating an annoying tagline.

“I know I’ve seen you though. I’ll think of it, don’t you worry!”

Eddie made his way to the bar to dodge the guy and his buddies. He ordered a straight whiskey from the bartender, hoping to calm his nerves just a little bit. “Such a bad idea,” he muttered to himself again, throwing it back.

A firm hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, just short of painful as it squeezed on him and Mulligan of all people slid into the seat next to him. “You’re pretty much full of them, aren’t you? Coming to _this_ bar of all places… terrible idea, Brock.”

Eddie felt nearly frozen in his seat. He had expected Mulligan to be here because he had staked out the place for the past two nights between tasks for work and had seen the guy coming in both nights. A regular even when benched. He had never expected Mulligan to come to him, however, figuring he would have to find the guy and then shadow him a bit. Direct confrontation was not part of the plan.

“I’ll have one of those too, on his tab,” Mulligan waved down the bartender, who merely nodded and set about getting another whiskey. “What the hell are you doing here, Brock?”

Nothing else would be believable as to why he would dare step foot in this bar, but he didn’t have to lie on this one thankfully. “I came here to find you,” Eddie revealed.

Mulligan’s green eyes narrowed on him. “What the fuck for?”

Eddie turned over the subject as smoothly as he could, hoping the officer would take it for an answer. He had a bad feeling that this guy was like a walking lie detector all on his own, so Eddie tried to avoid it as much as possible. “You want to bring justice against the Lees. I still think I can help you with that, even without an interview. I owe that to you, honestly. I got informants; I know things, things I wouldn’t mind sharing with you.”

“We got our own informants, asshole,” Mulligan sneered, taking the bait laid out as the answer for why Eddie was looking for him.

“So you know that a man with injuries matching the wound you gave Belton checked into the Sisters of Mercy hospital three nights ago to treat an infection? A Mr. B. Elton? Cute alias, isn’t it? It’s a wonder that he climbed so high in the Lee’s in the first place.”

Mulligan obviously hadn’t known that, the shock evident on his face. “H-how the fuck did _you_ know that?”

Eddie threw back his shot, feeling the burn on his throat steady him a bit. “My off-brand social warrior justice tricks, I guess.”

Mulligan stared daggers into him.

Eddie _had_ been working for the last few days, not just on getting things set for the spawning. He knew he was about to put Mulligan through… _a lot_. There was no way for him to be certain Mulligan would even-

Venom thought the new symbiote would take to him, Eddie _had_ to hope so. He wasn’t going to put on airs, however, and try to tell himself he was doing a good thing here. It was a selfish thing, and he could be a selfish man. He didn’t need anyone pointing out his flaws to him. He was genuinely sorry for it, but he couldn’t give the spawn to anyone that would actually _want_ it because nobody would ever want it just for purely good intentions.

The best he could do to make it up to Mulligan for now was to try to help him with the Lee gang. With a symbiote he would eventually be able to bring them to justice, Eddie had no doubt about that.

Eddie had called in all his resources on this to gather all the information he could to point Officer Mulligan in the right direction. Just one of the things he had done to get that path laid was find Belton. The Lee’s had their territories known, and Eddie had gone to two different hospitals in the areas posing as an overnight janitor. After slipping a nurse or two some fast-acting laxatives in their coffee he eventually got the chance to jump on their computers and go through their systems.

That wasn’t anything he knew Officer Mulligan wanted to know, and Eddie wasn’t interested in saying because he was fairly certain he would end up in jail yet tonight if he admitted it to this guy, even if it was to help him out.

“I got more for you too,” Eddie confessed, unzipping his bag carefully so Mulligan wouldn’t get a look at the bunny and pulling a folder from one of the interior slots containing what he had managed to find as far as names, locations, and connections were concerned. “Mr. B. Elton gave an address on his sign-in forms. It’s unlikely to be his actual home, but it might give you somewhere to start looking. They usually will put in an address familiar to them in some way. A relative, or even a diner they frequent, doesn’t matter. Just… the folder might smell weird… sorry.”

Mulligan took the folder, though at Eddie’s last comment he held it a little further away from himself, trying to limit the number of fingers touching it. “What the fuck?”

“I just- Look, at the end of the day, I want you to know that I really am sorry. For… everything. I was never trying to hurt you. I just… I didn’t know what else to do and trust me when I say that I understand all too well the hell that I put you through. I know this information alone won’t make up for it, but I hope eventually you can also find a way to use it and everything else to make the justice you’re seeking a reality.”

Mulligan just continued to scowl at him, confused at to what Eddie was talking about. At best, perhaps he thought Eddie was talking about getting him benched. Eddie wished that was the case. The fact was, he was trying to apologize for what he had yet to do.

**Eddie, now.**

“Anyway, no hard feelings I hope,” Eddie concluded, extending his hand as if to shake Mulligan’s and knocking the man’s shot of whiskey into his lap.

“Damn it!” Mulligan cussed, getting up from his seat. “Fucking… _ass_!”  

He stormed past Eddie to head to the bathrooms. Eddie mumbled a quick sorry and slapped a twenty on the bar, grabbing up the folder Mulligan had forgotten and following him.

Mulligan was already patting his pants down with paper towels when Eddie entered the bathrooms, glaring at Eddie like he just might swing at him in the mirror as he entered. “Fucking seriously? You don’t know when to fucking quit…”

“Easy,” Eddie implored, folder held up, “I’m just making sure you don’t forget this, and I’m going to use the restroom and go. If that’s not illegal…”

Mulligan turned away with a huff, missing when Eddie hit the lock on the bathroom door. Eddie put the folder on the counter and then slipped past him into one of the stalls.

“Now?” he whispered under his breath.

**Now.**

Eddie wasn’t certain what to expect, but he could feel… shifting. Venom was flowing through him, running beneath his skin in a way that made Eddie break out in gooseflesh. His skin tingled where the symbiote broke through the surface, black veins coiling around his back and over his shoulders to gather under his shirt, bulging as it writhed over his stomach. It probably wasn’t intentional on the symbiote’s part, but Eddie tried to calm himself down as he realized it sort of looked like a small pregnancy bump under his shirt as Venom bubbled up. He tried to keep his breathing under control so Mulligan wouldn’t suspect anything amiss, pulling his shirt up enough to see what was happening.

Fastened tight upon his stomach, the symbiote collected into a small bubble of itself, wriggling a bit and then tightening down into a more solid mass where it just sat for a moment and nothing seemed to happen.

Eddie felt a shift within him, however, under where the symbiote had amassed. A sort of stretching feeling was happening within him and he grunted as it shifted some of his innards uncomfortably. His eyes bugged and he grunted through what felt like a horrible stomach ache as the pocket Venom had made outside of him expanded and became semitransparent enough to allow Eddie to see a smaller dark mass pushed out through his skin and into it. He could see it writhing about a bit, but then the pocket tightened back down around it and all was still once again.

“Is that it?” Eddie whispered in awe.

**Yes, and now the split will begin.**

All the veins running over him suddenly tightened down and Eddie watched as the pocket bulged out and suddenly started to rip in two at the tip. Both sides of the rip wriggled around as if flailing, strands breaking off from one another as the seam continued down towards his stomach. A dark mucus formed where the split was happening and Eddie gasped as the symbiote’s own feelings started to hit him. It was… painful.

Painful enough that Eddie broke out in a cold sweat and tried to bear down and pant through it as it started to get even worse. It felt as if someone was removing his skin, tearing a part of him away from himself. It was-

“God!” Eddie growled out as the black veins clinging to him squeezed him even tighter, adding onto the second-hand pain he was receiving already. Hadn’t Venom said he wouldn’t feel a thing? What the hell?!

 **Eddie… need… Eddie…** came a broken sentamint through their link. It wasn’t from Venom, however…

The spawn, Eddie realized, feeling a pull upon his heart.

 **No! Eddie is _mine_**.

The spawn was resisting the split, having accumulated some of Venom’s feelings of companionship that the symbiote had gained with Eddie. The rip was more violent after that and Eddie slapped a hand over his mouth to try to muffle a cry of pain. Venom tightened around him like a boa meaning to suffocate him as it fought to complete the split successfully.

There was a soft knock on the door to his stall. “You… you okay, Brock?” Mulligan asked sheepishly, breaking all kinds of man-codes out of concern. “Fiber deficiency?”

Fuck Eddie wished that was all it was. He couldn’t even answer because if he let go of his own mouth he was just going to scream, whimpering around it as it was. ‘ _Venom- love, hurry_.’ He stressed in his mind.

As if they needed told. Another violent rip occurred and Eddie let out another muffled cry.

“O-okay, Brock… if something is seriously wrong I need you to… unlock this door. We can get an ambulance here if we need to…”

 **Do it Eddie!** Venom screamed through his mind. **Now!**

Eddie found the will enough to lurch forward on the toilet seat, snapping the lock open and Mulligan pushed the door open at the same time that Venom completed the splice and threw the spawn towards him, hitting him in the face. Mulligan let out a cry of his own in surprise and backpedaled away with a slew of curses.

The pain suddenly over with and instantly dulled, Eddie slumped back on the toilet and gasped for air, thanking every god he had ever heard of that it was over, willing to even go so far as to send Thor a thank you note in that moment.

Venom was also shaken, he could tell from the voice in his head and the way the symbiote sort of sludged back under his skin. **Eddie, it’s done. Get the bunny ready just in case.**

Right. If the spawn rejected Mulligan it would be obvious within minutes. If it accepted him then Mulligan likely wouldn’t even know at first. It could be hours or days before Toxin established awareness and a link strong enough to start speaking directly to him.

Eddie grabbed his bag from next to him, but before he could get it unzipped Mulligan was back in the stall with him, in a far less charitable mood than before.

His face was red and his eyes enraged as he grabbed Eddie and jerked him up out of the stall. “What the fuck did you just throw at me you sick-ass motherfucker! Was it shit?! What the fuck?! I don’t even- where the fuck did it even go?!” he raged, looking all around the bathroom once more.

 **Eddie, Toxin’s _in_ him. I feel them**. **Make him stop touching you before they decide to reject him and try to come back to us.**

Eddie tried to keep his attention on the irate officer about to strangle him, but as much as it seemed like that should be his most pressing concern at the moment, it unfortunately wasn’t.

“You’re right I’m sick! You need to let go, because I’m also contagious!” Eddie shouted, squirming out of Mulligan’s reach with the only half-assed idea he could come up with to get out of this at all. The oddity of his statement confused the man enough that Eddie was able to, but barely. “Feeling a lot better now- I didn’t sneeze on you though, did I? I’m so sorry Officer Mulligan. I never meant to. Just been a real struggle… stomach pains and sneezing and such. Didn’t mean to freak you out. It’s passed now enough that I feel a lot better, so I should get going.” It made no fucking sense, but Eddie learned long ago as a reporter trying to go places he wasn’t allowed that half the time people believed whatever bullshit they were told as long as it was spoken like it was an absolute fact.

Mulligan was hardly a weak-minded person, but he again looked at himself in the mirror like he was trying to find proof of what _had_ hit him. “You weren’t- that was no sneeze! Stomach pain- you had your pants up the whole time!”

“It’s fine, it was gas more than anything else,” Eddie buffered, scooting away to grab his bag and sling it on behind him, giving another once-over of Mulligan.

He was still irate, and very confused as to what had just happened, but without an explanation to offer up himself he seemed uncertain of what to start kicking Eddie’s ass for exactly. More importantly, he didn’t seem in pain or… any less alive. Bodily, he seemed fine.

Eddie still wanted to give it another moment to make sure if he could, stalling a bit. “Anyway, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine, really. You uh- you will be too… try not to sweat it.”

Mulligan still was a bit lost as he tried to go over and over in his head what had just happened, trying to understand it and ultimately failing till he was left just glaring back at Eddie with suspecting eyes.

“Don’t forget that folder, really,” Eddie reminded him, pointing back to where it sat on the sink. “You’ll want it later, regardless. Sort of set you off in the right direction.”

“Brock,” Mulligan bit out harshly, shutting Eddie up.

He wasn’t certain what to expect at that point, but wasn’t all that surprised when Mulligan uppercut him to the gut, dropping him like a stone onto his knees in the bathroom as he gasped for air and curled up feebly.

**Eddie!**

‘ _Don’t_ ,’ Eddie urged Venom from within, feeling he deserved at least that much at this point.

Mulligan had already turned away to pick up the report. “Get the fuck out of here, Brock. I don’t want to ever see you again. You hear me? If you ever cross my path again, I’ll do **worse**.”

There was something in that last word Paddy spoke, a voice not entirely just his own. Eddie’s head snapped up despite his pain. The guy didn’t seem to have even noticed it, his expression utterly passive despite his assertive warning. He blinked down at Eddie and for a moment those green eyes were pools of black staring down at him before he blinked again and it was as though it never was. Toxin was there then. Mulligan seemed safe enough that he wouldn’t be rejected.

 **Eddie, we have to go.** Venom prompted him, wanting to get away from the spawn that could possibly come at them yet; though it was clear it wouldn’t be to re-bond with them any longer.

Eddie pulled himself to his feet on shaky legs and let himself out of the bathroom, thinking silently to himself once more that he hoped Paddy and Toxin both might forgive him one day.

As he staggered out through the bar Officer Murphy managed to spot him again, coming up to him with another guess as to who he reminded him of. Judging from the smile on his face Eddie could already tell he had guessed wrong again. “What about the NFL? You a ref?”

“Hey, Murphy, I got a weird favor to ask you,” Eddie managed to get out, still clutching his aching stomach.

“Um, sure…”

Eddie grabbed a pen from the man’s breast pocket and started scribbling his phone number on the nearest napkin.

“Oh, listen… I don’t- not that I’m not flattered but…”

“What? No, just- look, just if anything weird happens with Officer Mulligan at the station or… anywhere else really. Maybe give me a call? Just to let me know.”

“I -uh… weird?”

Eddie forced a laugh, which Murphy mimicked despite not knowing why. “Just the normal stuff; the flue, fatigue, jumping into lobster tanks, biting the heads off anything… the usual. Thanks so much man, we appreciate it.”

Before Murphy could become confused enough to question anything, Eddie handed him the napkin and continued out of there, making tracks down the street.

A part of him felt like a weight had been lifted, having just one symbiote to share his body with again. Another more foolishly biological part of him, however, felt the loss.

Venom moved within him under his skin once more, seeping out of his back and daring to come into the open under the guise of a large black hoodie around Eddie’s torso, holding him even though they didn’t understand his feeling of loss. Honestly they even thought him foolish for it, and Eddie agreed with the sentiment, but it didn’t change it. He hoped Paddy would be okay. He hoped they both would be okay, honestly.

“Let’s go home, Love,” he sighed to himself.

**Can we get spaghetti on the way?**

“Yeah.”

**And you’ll do the thing? You’ll ball it up so we can eat it like brains?**

“Yeah, sure. We should probably also take Mr. Hopper-field back to Mrs. Chen so she can get him back to her cousin.”

**That’s already taken care of.**

Eddie felt the symbiote push the bag out on his back from underneath the false hoodie, noting that it was significantly lighter. He should have seen that one coming. “Really? The bunny and you’re _still_ hungry?”

**Of course, we just completed a spawning. We need to replenish energy. We’re hungry, Eddie.**

He hadn’t really been paying attention to it, but now that it was pointed out… “Yeah, I guess _we_ are, Venom.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subscribe for a special Epilogue  
> Thank you all for reading, please leave a kudos and review to show your support!


	6. Epilogue

**Epilogue:**

 

_December 20 th, _

_16 th entry;_

 

_If it wasn’t for keeping this journal I’m not certain I would know still what are my own thoughts and what are the monster’s. Before I let them out for ‘playtime’ tonight, I wanted to report in. It helps me keep things straight, and since I let the precinct know nearly four months ago that I was taking a long-extended leave for personal illness I suppose it’s habit that I fill out reports to someone, even if it’s my own laptop._

_Two nights ago Toxin and I infiltrated the hideout of Kenny Roochie, aka K-Roochie, aka Roo-roo K. A higher-up for the Lee Gang. After a brief firefight with Kenny he was disarmed… very literally- by the symbiote Toxin before being apprehended._

_I will have to continue to work on that with them. Him? Them? **Them** , I guess. It’s still hard to keep Toxin from going too far at times, but they’re slowly getting better about it._

_A positive to note on that point: Kenny’s girlfriend had been passed out through the whole thing, she had so much cocaine in her. She nearly slipped into a coma from overdose. Toxin was the one to also grab her up and get the both of them to the hospital quickly before either could succumb to a worse fate. The police were called to pick up Kenny from there._

_That makes nine of the Lee’s heavy hitters put behind bars now since acquiring this other entity within me. I’m hoping that tonight will make it an even ten, though it will be our hardest to catch yet. Kenny squealed on his boss for Toxin in the midst of losing an arm, giving us the location of the big man’s own hideout. So tonight we go after the leader and founder of the Lee’s, known only by his street alias, ‘Old Stan’._

_It’s more than I could have ever accomplished in a mere four months at the precinct, I can admit that, but it’s harder in many ways…_

_I’ll be honest with this journal- as I’ve tried to be from the beginning- for all the incredible power that Toxin possesses, which seems to only grow more and more each day, and all the drive and dedication they have once fixated on a target… they’re still so young… if that’s the correct term. Maybe ‘new’ is more appropriate._

_I’m still unable to think of them as ‘young’ when they’re capable of becoming such an absolute red and black nightmare of a beast. They also have what seems to be an advanced grasp of understanding and communication, a match of my own anyway- which they said they picked up from scouring my own mind for better understanding between us. Their overall knowledge, however, is still so underdeveloped, so new, and often takes a back seat to their impulses. Impulses I can also feel that tell me to hunt. To kill. To consume…_

_I don’t want to explore what exactly._

_It’s so hard sometimes to hold them back when I almost can’t tell if those are my desires too or not. But those are NOT my desires. They never will be. I will put that here now so I don’t forget it down the road._

_I’ve been trying to teach them more about laws and being a policeman. Serving and protecting. Enforcing the law to meet these ideals. They thankfully seem intrigued by the novelty of it, sometimes even enthusiastic of it._

_The only times I even come close to thinking killing might also be my desire is when I allow myself to think of Eddie Brock for too long. Toxin has also told me of its parent symbiote that resides within that son of a bitch. They wanted so badly in the first few weeks to go after them and tear them both apart; assuring me repeatedly that they were strong enough to do so once our connection was made. That’s why I haven’t allowed myself anywhere near Brock since that night, no matter what. Calling him up to bitch him out wouldn’t be nearly enough for me, and I would only further want to see him to do… things I can’t allow myself to do. Things I can never allow Toxin to do to anyone._

_Toxin is so strong, and if their memory of their parent’s abilities is anything for me to go by I have no doubts that Toxin could indeed far surpass them at this point. So I have to stay away. For all our sakes._

_More for my personal records now: there are a few positives to report on concerning Toxin._

_They are more accepting to our established rules in exchange for ‘playtime’, staying within me throughout the day and only coming out for a few hours in which I give them nearly free reign to patrol or ‘play’ -as they call it. They sometimes break the rules a little bit around the apartment, but no one can see at least and it’s usually just a red strand extending to grab something or play with the TV remote._

_It’s hard to keep them away from the violent movies, which I’ve never had a taste for. They’ve got even more bad habits when it comes to food, which I assume they got from their parent or maybe Brock, but after nothing but junk food for the first month or so I couldn’t take it anymore. I mentioned before in this journal how they used to come out and hurl whatever vegetables I tried to eat at the wall like a child throwing a fit; now there’s hardly more than pouting so long as I promise them ~~bribe them~~ with a bite-sized chocolate bar afterwards. That is also still a work in progress, but progress none the less. _

_They ask questions constantly, and I answer what I can. The constant questions about things they see humans do aren’t a big issue. Sometimes, however, they ask me about symbiote stuff. Things that seem to be ingrained into their kind. I don’t have answers for them, so we do what we can together to figure it out, but it’s worrisome how much of it is violent and void of empathy or sentimentality of any kind._

_It will be Christmas in a few days, and I’m toying with the crazy idea of maybe getting them a small gift in hopes of perhaps encouraging some of these more humanly traits. It might do the both of us some good to feel them more often._

_It’s so hard sometimes, harder than anything I’ve ever done in my life, keeping a safe balance between Toxin and the rest of humanity. Sometimes they are a downright petulant brat about it, but there’s something else about it; something fulfilling, for lack of a better word. Honestly it’s hard sometimes to even think of Toxin as a monster to myself anymore. They’re more than that, and have the potential to be so much more. I hope that-_

 

**Pat! Pat, it’s playtime now!** Rumbled a gleeful voice from within him.

Patrick leaned back in his computer chair, cracking his neck as he saved his work and shut down the laptop for the night. He would finish it up later. “Easy Bud, you’re a few minutes early.”

**I waited, but I’m so bored. Besides, tonight we hunt! Tonight we go after the pack’s alpha and we-**

“Arrest him and turn him over to the cops,” Pat reminded them, before they could get too carried away.

**Yes yes, but first we get to hunt him! We can catch him, easy. Just like all the others. Then we go after the next pack!**

It was true there was no shortage of gangs in the area, both big time and small, but again, Mulligan tried to reign in the symbiote’s excitement so they wouldn’t get too carried away in the moment. “Right, but remember, it will be different in the future too. We pull this off together without any serious issues and I’ll keep that promise I made you about returning to the force.”

**We’ll get to be real cops! Heros!**

So much for calming them down, though Patrick smiled too, a part of him hoping to return to his normal life as much as possible. Toxin would be his secrete, but returning to the force would put him back in the loop, and even give Toxin proper training while they observed during the day that they could later apply to those cases they had to go after together outside of work.

“That’s the goal, anyway,” Patrick nodded in agreement as he got up to dump his coffee and start turning off lights around his place.

**Pat?**

“Yes?”

**The guy whose arm I ripped off the other night… the one you were angry with me about…**

Pat had indeed been, but he had checked in with his partner back on the force early this morning to find out that both Kenny and his girlfriend would survive at least. “Yes, Toxin?”

**I won’t do that again if it’s really _that_ bad. You said cops can’t go around tearing people’s arms off. If I don’t do it again can- can I still be a hero? **

Patrick almost wanted to open his laptop back up, but knew Toxin wouldn’t have the patience. Still, Toxin had never come so close to apologizing for their violence before. It was definitely progress for them.

“I think you’re getting closer every day now, Bud,” he smirked to himself.

He felt the surge of excited glee shake through him from the energetic symbiote within.

“You remember the plan for taking down ‘Old Stan’? Remember the location of the place we scoped out this morning?” Pat prompted, pulling on his coat even though he wouldn’t really need it.

**Yes.**

“Remember the rules?”

**Yes.**

“Repeat them for me, please.”

An impatient huff went through his mind. **No** **arsen, no grand larceny, and no killing**.

“And the newest rule?”

**Stay safe! We know, can we go now?**

Patrick sometimes felt so old in the wake of Toxin’s manic energy, but smirked as he climbed out through his window onto the fire escape and made his way up to the roof where no one would see. For as old as the symbiote made him feel, there were times he also felt very young again with Toxin. The hunts were amongst those times.

“Okay Bud,” Patrick grinned as he reached the roof, taking in the breath-taking view of the city’s nightscape as his heart rate kicked up with shared excitement that they would soon be racing through it.

**Playtime?!**

“Playtime.”  

**PLAYTIME!**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much and if this inspires more Toxin fans out there or gives something to the current Toxin fans that would be worth it all. This was so much fun to write! Thank you all for reading.  
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**Author's Note:**

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> or on Instagram at Rnfloyd_official 
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